Department of Physics and Astronomy

Faculty Spotlight

Mark Caprio

Professor Mark Caprio, of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Notre Dame, has been elected to the directorship of the Executive Board of the theory alliance for the U.S. Department of Energy's Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). He will serve in the director line for three years, successively as Director Elect, Director, and Past Director.

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Faculty Spotlight

Abhisek Datta

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland, is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. It is used to collide subatomic particles, with the goal of exploring the fundamental interactions in particle physics by studying the data from the experiments.

This research is the main focus of Abhisek Datta, an assistant professor in the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.

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Faculty Spotlight

Laura Fields

Laura Fields, associate professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Notre Dame, received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) for her research studying the properties of fundamental particles called neutrinos.

Fields was among the nearly 400 researchers who were named awardees by President Joe Biden on January 14. PECASE is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government for scientists and engineers early in their careers.

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Faculty Spotlight

Nirmal Ghimire

Scientists at the University of Notre Dame synthesized a material that exhibits a rare and promising form of magnetism known as altermagnetism, which could reshape how computers store and process information in the future, a new study in Nature Communications shows.

Scientists have long sought out new methods that can support the future of ultra-fast and energy efficient electronics, said Nirmal Ghimire, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Ghimire and collaborators synthesized single crystals of a compound called called CoNb₄Se₈ that exhibits altermagnetism, according to the study.

“This is a brand-new type of magnetism, realized just within the last few years,” said Ghimire, who is affiliated with Notre Dame’s Stavropoulos Center for Complex Quantum Matter.

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Faculty Spotlight

Kevin Lannon

University of Notre Dame physics professor Kevin Lannon in the Department of Physics and Astronomy has received the Meenakshi Narain Mentoring Award from the American Physical Society (APS), an honor that celebrates his commitment to his student advising and leadership within the field of particle physics.

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