The Yale Physics 2009 Leigh Page Prize Lectures were held April 20th, April 22nd and April 24th 2009 by Carlo Beenakker of Leiden University.
Mesoscopic physics of graphene
Graphene is a realization of “nano chicken wire”: a plane hexagonal lattice of carbon atoms. It has been studied by theorists as an academic exercise for half a century, but it was only shown recently to exist in nature as a stable form of carbon. The dynamics of conduction electrons in graphene is the same as that of relativistic massless particles, with a velocity that is 300 times smaller than the speed of light. The appearance of concepts from relativistic quantum mechanics in condensed matter physics is unusual, and provides an entirely new and suprising phenomenology. Whether or not these new phenomena have useful applications, in particular for carbon-based electronics, remains to be seen, but there is certainly much interesting physics to explore - as we hope to show in this series of lectures.
Monday, April 20, 2009 - What is special about graphene?
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 - Relativity m2eets superconductivity in graphene
Thursday, April 23, 2009 - Majorana fermions in graphene and topological insulators
The Leigh Page Prize Lecture series are given each year by a distinguished physicist in honor of Leigh Page who received his PhD in Physics from Yale in 1913. He was later acting Chair and Director of the Sloane Physics Laboratory. Professor Page devoted his time to teaching (mostly graduate classes), research, and writing several textbooks. Since 1967, several speakers in the Leigh Page Prize Lecture series have later received Nobel Prizes and other notable awards. In connection with the lecture series, a prize is offered to first year graduate students in recognition of their fine academic record and for the promise of important contributions to the field of physics.