Author: Sean Brittain

Space Physicist Jens Oberheide is co-author on a study selected as a research highlight by the American Geophysical Union.  The Global-Scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) instrument is the first NASA/ComSat owner-operator partnership for delivering a science payload into a geostationary orbit. GOLD’s unique observing geometry mitigates the decade-old problem of low Earth orbiting satellites to separate temporal from spatial changes in Earth’s ionosphere and thermosphere. First results from GOLD have yielded surprising discoveries that may help to develop better models of space weather, an important task for a technological society

Dr. Jian He of the Department of Physics & Astronomy Clemson is a corresponding author of a Science article describing a new van der Waals inorganic semiconductor. The van der Waals inorganic semiconductors are generally brittle and prone to cleavage in its bulk form at room temperature. However, an international team of scientists found that this is not always the case. In a recent article entitled “Exceptional plasticity in the bulk single-crystalline van der Waals semiconductor InSe” published in Science , the authors show that bulk single crystalline InSe can be morphed into simple origami, Mobius ring, engineeringly strained to 80% in compression, > 10% in tensile and bending strain along specific direction, without losing the structural integrity. The peculiar long-range Coulomb interaction across the van der Waals gap plays a key role in the observed bulk superplastic deformability. The scientific and technical implications of this discovery include flexible and plastic electronics, sensors, and energy harvesting devices.  A perspective article, “Ductile van der Waals materials”, was published in the same journal issue to highlight this discovery.

As the pandemic continues to spread and keep our economy at a standstill, one Clemson researcher is hard at work to create a faster COVID-19 test. With funding from an NSF Rapid grant, Dr. Ding is working on a way to provide test results in 15 minutes. Such a test will enable near real-time testing and open the door to allowing the people to engage in more public activities without fear of spreading or catching the virus. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Ding on his very important work!

Please join me in congratulating the Medical Physics group for placing 2^nd place in the Summer COVID Challenge.

The COVID Challenge was a competition for undergraduate students and their mentors across all disciplines to create a video pitch for any research, product, or service that addresses one of the many issues we’re dealing with due to the COVID pandemic including the virus itself, mental health in isolation, and alternative learning opportunities. The combined Physics/BioEngineering Creative Inquiry group proposed expanding our previous radiosensitizer work — typically used for cancer treatment — to target and destroy COVID-infected cells with low-dose x-ray radiation and, hopefully, reduce or eliminate the viral load on the patient’s immune system. If successful, the treatment would be as simple as getting a basic imaging x-ray and could improve outcomes for infected patients.

The undergrads’ video pitch (https://youtu.be/KYRCHRW10rQ) won second place and $2500 to do our proof of concept experiments! They also have a lead on private funding. Jaclyn D’Azvanzo is now doing preliminary calculations to make this a reality in the lab. We are excited to see where this leads!

It has been quite a spring semester. I’d like to thank all of our faculty and GTAs for their excellent efforts at moving our courses online! This has been a Herculean effort, and I’m sure that our students appreciate all you have done for them. In the midst of all of the bad news we hear about COVID-19 and the ongoing challenges that come with social distancing, I thought I would update you on a couple of recent items of good news.

First, join me in congratulating Roshani Silwal. After completing her post-doc at Triumf in Canada, she will be moving back closer to Clemson to start a tenure-track position at Appalachian State. She will continue to collaborate with her advisor at Clemson, Prof. Takacs, and mentor her own group of aspiring young physicists.

Speaking of Dr. Takacs’s group, they have been extremely active lately – publishing six papers in the last few months! One of these was published in Phys Rev A and recognized by Kaleidoscope. This paper characterizes the x-ray spectra of highly charged tungsten – an important tool for studying plasmas in fusion reactors.

The high energy astrophysicists at Clemson have been busy as well. A paper led by a Clemson postdoc, Dr. Paliya and including Profs. Ajello and Hartmann. In this paper, they provide the first unambiguous evidence of merging galaxies resulting in AGN accretion and the launching of a relativistic jet. This paper was featured in the AASNova and an image from this paper was chosen as the NASA picture of the week.

One of our newest postdocs, Nuria Torres-Alba, just published a fascinating News and Views article for Nature Astronomy. This article explores the effect of stars on the declaration of relativistic AGN jets.

In addition to this exciting scholarship, our students and faculty continued to be recognized for their excellent work. Dr. Sanabria was selected as a CUSHR fellow. Fanchen Meng was recognized as an Outstanding Graduate Student in Discovery. Hugh Bates was recognized as a Outstanding Graduate Student in Learning. Lea Marcotulli was recognized as an Outstanding Graduate Student in Engagement. Paul “Marston” Copeland was recognized as a Goldwater Fellow.

Finally, join me in welcoming our most recent members of the faculty. Yao Wang and Kasra Sardashti. Dr. Wang is a theorist who is primarily interested in the study of quantum many-body problems. Dr. Sardashti is an experimentalist primarily interested in hybrid superconducting-semiconducting materials as they apply to quantum computing.

These are just a few of the exciting developments that have occurred in our department since we moved all of our classes online and limited access to campus to essential operations. I hope to have much more to report about our graduates as we near the end of the semester.

Clemson’s Physics and Astronomy department would love to welcome you back to campus! We are having events to connect PandA alumni with current graduate and undergraduate students! If you are interested in attending events for Clemson’s Physics & Astronomy Alumni Week (Oct 24-Oct 26), please use this Google form to RSVP. We hope to see you there!

Rama Podila has been recognized by the Clemson Young Alumni association with the Roaring 10 Award. Each year, the Clemson Young Alumni Council recognizes ten outstanding individuals for their impact in business, leadership, community, educational and/or philanthropic endeavors. The honor is given to those individuals who exemplify Clemson University’s core values of honesty, integrity, and respect. Rama is earned his Ph.D. from Clemson in 2011 and took a postdoc at the Brody School of Medicine in Greenville, NC. In 2013, Dr. Podila returned to Clemson as a Research Assistant Professor in our department and joined the tenure-track in 2015. His interdisciplinary research stands at the intersection of condensed matter physics and medical biophysics through his work on nano-biomaterials, nanotoxicity, nanobiosensors, and nanomedicine. Dr. Podila is extraordinarily productive with 83 peer-reviewed papers, four book chapters, and three patents to his credit, and this work is having significant impact in the field. His work has already garnered nearly 4000 citations and resulted in an h-index of 38. Please join me in congratulating our colleague for this well-deserved recognition from the Clemson Young Alumni Association.

Professor Ding as published a paper in Nature titled “Inhibition of amyloid beta toxicity in zebrafish with a chaperone-gold nanoparticle dual strategy”. They describe the use of casein coated-gold nanoparticles to eliminate the toxicity of amyloid beta in a zebra fish. Amyloid beta is associated with various neurodegenerative disorders in humans such as Alzheimer’s disease. Please join me in congratulating our colleagues on this very exciting development.