In a recent article in Physics Review B, Adriana Moreo, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, demonstrated a possible Venue for converting graphene into a workable semiconductor. Graphene, one of the strongest and lightest materials known and the subject of the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics, consists of single sheets of graphite carbon only one atom thick.
To be useful, semiconductors have to be controllable. One way to do that is by adding impurities, which bond with a material’s surface and tweak its conductivity. In the paper “Spin-Polarized Semiconductor Induced by Magnetic Impurities in Graphene,” Moreo, along with post-doc Maria Daghofer and graduate student Nan Zheng, reported on how adding magnetic impurities to graphene could change its properties, becoming either a standard or a polarized semiconductor. The potential to tune electrical properties of graphene makes it a strong candidate to compete with silicon in the transistor industry.
Moreo, who holds a joint faculty appointment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, joined the UT faculty in 2004. Her research interests lie in condensed matter theory, materials science, computational physics, and strongly correlated electron systems. Moreo organizes the physics department’s “Women in Physics” lunches for female students and faculty and also advises all undergraduate female physics majors. She referees several professional journals and is a fellow of the American Physical Society.
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Selected Publications
M. Daghofer, N. Zheng, A. Moreo, “Spin-polarized semiconductor induced by magnetic impurities in graphene,” Physics Review B 82:121405 RC (2010).
M. Daghofer, A. Moreo, “Comment on “Nonmagnetic impurity resonances as a signature of sign-reversal pairing in FeAs-based superconductors,” Physics Review Letters 104 (8): 089701 (2010).
M. Daghofer, A. Nicholson, A. Moreo, et al., Three orbital model for the iron-based superconductors,” Physics Review B. 81 (1): 014511 (2010).
E. Dagotto, T. Hotta, A. Moreo, “Colossal magnetoresistant materials: The key role of phase separation, Physics Reports—Review Section of Physics Letters 344 (1-3): 1-153 (2001).
A. Moreo, S. Yunoki, E. Dagotto, “Solid state physics – Phase separation scenario for manganese oxides and related materials,” Science 283, (5410): 2034-2040 (1999).
Visit the Quest Gallery at Trace, UT’s digital archive, to access publications of other Quest Scholars of the Week.