University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
PhD Physics, 2008 expected
Advisor, Dr Tai-Chang Chiang
My name is Nathan Speer. Thank you for visiting. Please feel free to explore the links at the top of the page to learn more about various aspects of my research.
I am a physics graduate student at UIUC working under the supervision of Dr. T.-C. Chiang. My field of research is experimental condensed matter physics, with a focus in understanding electronic effects in ultra-thin metal films grown on semiconductor substrates using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). My experiments are conducted at the Synchrotron Radiation Center in Stoughton, WI.
My recent work has shown that atomically uniform silver films prepared on highly doped silicon substrates give rise to electronic states with very long coherence lengths that propagate through the film as a quantum well and deep into the substrate as a quantum slope, despite the incommensurate lattice mismatched interface. The results were published in Science magazine and were highlighted in the December issue of the MRS Bulletin.
Please click below to read the articles!
N J Speer, S-J Tang, T Miller, T-C Chiang Coherent Electronic Fringe Structure in Incommensurate Silver-Silicon Quantum Wells Science, 314, 804 (2006)
Research/Researchers news article: Quantum coherence possible in incommensurate electronic systems, MRS Bulletin, 31, 969 (2006)
University of Illinois at Ubana-Champaign
Department of Physics
1110 West Green Street
Urbana, IL 61801-3080
Nathan J Speer
