Condensed-Matter and Materials Physics The Science of the World Around Us (2007) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 7-29
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From page 7... ...
By understanding these phenomena, CMMP researchers affect people's lives in countless ways, from improving our understanding of nature to developing new technologies. Historically reliable drivers for the discovery of new emergent phenomena are new materials and devices.
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From page 8... ...
These scientific challenges, discussed in turn below, are as follows: • How do complex phenomena emerge from simple ingredients? • How will the energy demands of future generations be met?
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From page 9... ...
Existing materials, pushed to new regimes of high purity, low or high temperatures, high pressures, or high magnetic fields, have always yielded surprises, including wholly new phases of matter. Fresh theoretical perspectives frequently bring into focus hitherto perplexing or ignored features of existing observations that reflect previously overlooked organizing principles and suggest new avenues for further experimental inquiry.
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From page 10... ...
The United States must develop affordable, renewable energy sources to reduce dependence on fossil fuels while minimizing carbon emissions and other sources of harm to the en vironment. Promising technologies for solar energy, hydrogen fuel cells, solid-state lighting, rechargeable batteries, and improved nuclear power will all play critical roles, but fundamentally new scientific approaches are also needed to address the magnitude of this challenge and its urgency effectively.
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From page 11... ...
Discovering and understanding new materials, especially nanostructured materials with novel materials properties, will be key to advancing the energy research frontiers. For example, new superconductors could dramatically reduce energy losses in power transmission, while new thermoelectric materials could enable the drawing of power from waste heat or geothermal energy.
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From page 12... ...
This problem exists at many different levels of biological organization, from single molecules, to networks of molecules in single cells, to interactions among cells in complex organisms such as humans. Fundamental physical noise sources, such as the random motion of individual molecules and the random arrival of photons at the retina on a dark night, all have measurable effects on the function of biological systems.
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From page 13... ...
Progress is being made on understanding what makes proteins, essential molecular building blocks of life, special in the broad class of heteropolymers. Similarly, principles are being suggested that might single out what is unique about the networks of biochemical interactions in a cell as opposed to an arbitrary network.
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From page 14... ...
Dramatic developments in biology itself have made it possible to break down some of these boundaries, so that the tools which allow researchers to explore the genetics of bacteria also can be used to explore the way in which neurons in the human brain acquire their identity and function. Physicists have gone farther, asking conceptual questions, such as those about noise and robustness described above, which cut across the classical layers of biological organization.
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From page 15... ...
In the past decade, CMMP researchers have begun to tackle far-from-equilibrium behavior governing the workings of systems of critical national importance, including the economy, ecosystems, and the environment. As a result, breakthroughs in the area have potential for far-reaching impact across many scientific disciplines.
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From page 16... ...
Despite this, CMMP researchers are finding important connections to a wide range of other fields, both within and outside physics. Over the next decade, it will be critical to find ways to stimulate new links and to nurture crosscutting approaches in order to realize the vast po tential of this research.
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From page 17... ...
, constructed from nanoscale building blocks like deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
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From page 18... ...
The phenomenal growth of information technology in recent decades has been enabled by fundamental discoveries in condensed-matter and materials physics that stretch back to the 1930s and 1940s, particularly the invention of the transistor. Now, after more than five decades of continuous progress based largely on improv ing and repeatedly miniaturizing the transistor, opportunities for further gains appear limited.
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From page 19... ...
And there is the grand quest to harness individual quantum states for computation -- quantum computing -- with the promise of exponentially accelerated computational speed and potentially unbreakable encryption schemes. As experimentalists study model systems such as Josephson junction-based quantum bits (qubits)
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From page 20... ...
While CMMP research formed the corner stone of the electronics revolution of the 20th century, it is now poised to make vital contributions to addressing problems of the 21st century, such as the global renewable energy challenge and the revolution occurring in the biomedical health care arena. Along with the six scientific challenges for CMMP that are identified here and discussed in greater detail in Chapters 2 through 7 of this report, the challenge to educate the next generation of scientists and citizens is given equal importance by the Committee on CMMP 2010, although the nature of the challenge is admittedly different in character.
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From page 21... ...
Condensed-matter and materials physics has a long history of seeding not only developments in fundamental biology, such as the use of x-ray diffraction to study biological structure, but also developments in the practice of medicine. The past decade has been rich with examples in which CMMP has had major societal impact, from the widespread adoption of reliable home pregnancy tests based on gold nanoparticles, to routine magnetic resonance imaging using ever-improving superconducting magnets, to using nanoparticle-based contrast enhancement to image everything from tumors to brain function, to the development of new materials for the increased lifespan of surgical implants.
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From page 22... ...
In the area of computation, density functional theory is now used extensively by chemists to calculate the electronic structures of materials and by polymer physicists to calculate the structure of polymer molecules in solutions and melts. CMMP has also had a huge impact through the development of advanced characterization tools, such as synchrotron light sources, neutron probes, scan ning probes for studying the nanoworld of new materials, and nuclear magnetic resonance, which has become one of the most powerful characterization tools in chemistry and polymer science.
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From page 23... ...
The role of CMMP in quantum computing is even more central. The theory of the transmission and processing of intact quantum states has significantly altered the assessment of the kind and quantity of physical resources needed to solve various computational problems, with applications to cryptography and potential quantum computation.
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From page 24... ...
The replacement of the great industrial laboratories as sources of invention and leadership is a major chal lenge to the United States. The physics community, the federal government, and interested private-sector parties, such as investors in new technology, individual companies, foundations, and industrial consortia, must work together to create organizational and funding mechanisms that work well to create future technical breakthroughs and to provide the United States with a pathway for future scientific and technological leadership.
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From page 25... ...
leadership in number of CMMP articles published in two leading journals, Physical Review B (PRB) and Physical Review E (PRE)
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From page 26... ...
, and with other science disciplines that are now merging strongly with CMMP at its boundaries, such as biology and chemistry. Tools, Instrumentation, and Facilities for CMMP Research CMMP researchers have developed remarkable tools to uncover the micro scopic origins of emergent phenomena.
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From page 27... ...
Light sources allow the extension of the power of the optical microscope to obtain images of condensed matter at much smaller distances in real space, as well as in the space spanned by momentum and energy, and in what is becoming increasingly important, a mixture of the two. The committee was impressed by the technological advances that had taken place in the past few years, and focused its recommendations on capturing the tremendous research opportunities seen for the coming decades.
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From page 28... ...
for superconducting magnets and instrumentation for the entire suite of high-field magnets and associated facilities. The next decade is poised to see con tinuing gains in static and pulsed magnetic field capabilities as well as the utilization of high magnetic fields in conjunction with synchrotron and neutron-based probes to study selected frontiers of CMMP, as discussed in a recent NRC study. Computation has become an indispensable tool in all aspects of condensed matter and materials physics theory and experiment.
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From page 29... ...
U.S. leadership in fundamental CMMP research is seriously threatened by the low success rates in proposals submitted for government funding of research, the precipitous decline of involvement of industrial laboratories in fundamental CMMP research, and the increasing competition from other countries for the best scientists.
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