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| LANL Contact lanl.gov | efohtung@lanl.gov Experimental Physical Sciences (ADEPS) Los Alamos National Laboratory MS H805 Los Alamos, NM 87545 phone: 505.667.4972 |
NMSU Contact physics.nmsu.edu | efohtung@nmsu.edu Department of Physics, New Mexico State University MSC 3D, N. Horseshoe Dr., las Cruces NM 88003 phone: 575.646.5631 | Fax: 575.646.1932 |
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Light Source (SSRL), Menlo Park, CA
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), Grenoble, France
Angströmquelle Karlsruhe (ANKA), Karlsruhe, Germany
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Hamburg, Germany
Diamond Light Source (Diamond), Oxfordshire, UK
French National Synchrotron Soleil (Soleil), Paris, France
At NMSU, we are currently in the process of setting up an X-ray laboratory with a 3 kW X-ray tube source and a 4-circle diffractometer, which shall be used for studying reflectivity from thin films, powder diffraction patterns and can also be used for single crystal studies. We also have a spin-coater (from collaborating faculty) for preparing polymer films on substrates, along with an ellipsometer for assessing film thickness, and are setting up a facility for carrying out dynamic and static light scattering studies. Our group also has access to characterization facilities at Los Alamos national Lab.
In addition to in-house facilities at NMSU our research relies on state-of-the-art national facilities, primarily Los Alamos National Lab, Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Lab, Spallation Neutron Source at Oakridge and Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley. We generally use large facilities across the United States and around the world.
Neutron Facilities
Los Alamos Neutron Scattering Center | Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANSCE), Los Alamos, NM
Spallation Neutron Source – Oak Ridge National Laboratory (SNS-ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN
NIST Center for Neutron Research National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD
ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxford, UK
Light Source Facilities
Advanced Photon Source | Argonne National Laboratory (APS), Argonne, IL
Advanced Light Source – Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (ALS), Berkeley, CA
National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), Upton, NY
SLAC Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), Menlo Park, CA
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Light Source (SSRL), Menlo Park, CA
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), Grenoble, France
Angstroemquelle Karlsruhe (ANKA), Karlsruhe, Germany
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Hamburg, Germany
Diamond Light Source (Diamond), Oxfordshire, UK
French National Synchrotron Soleil (Soleil), Paris, France
Dr. Edwin Fohtung
Assistant Professor,
LANSCE Professor at NMSU
— LANL Contact —–
www.lanl.gov | efohtung@lanl.gov
Experimental Physical Sciences (ADEPS)
Los Alamos National Laboratory
MS H805 Los Alamos, NM 87545
phone: 505.667.4972
— NMSU Contact —–
physics.nmsu.edu | efohtung@nmsu.edu
Department of Physics, New Mexico State University
MSC 3D, N. Horseshoe Dr., las Cruces NM 88003
phone: 575.646.5631 | Fax: 575.646.1932
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Ph.D Students
Erandi Wijerathna
BS (Physics), University of Columbo, Sri Lanka
Contact:
Email: erandi@nmsu.edu
Field and Research Interests:
Magnetostriction and Magnetic Nanostructures
Dmitry Karpov Msc (Physics), Tomsk State Polytechnic University, Russia
Contact:
Email: hardrijam@gmail.com
Field and Research Interests:
Magnetoelectronic Phases and Coherent Scattering/Imaging
Richard Mbatang
BS (Physics), University of Buea, Cameroon
Contact:
Email: mbatang@nmsu.edu
Field and Research Interests:
Novel Electronics, Magnetic and Magnetoelectric Phases
Dennis Trujillo
BS (Physics), New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM.
Contact:
Email: dptru10@nmsu.edu
Field and Research Interests:
Computational methods, Phase Reconstruction Methods, Magnetic and Magnetoelectric Phases
Ayana Ghosh
BS (Physics/Abstract Mathematics), University of Michigan-Flint, Flint, MI.
Contact:
Email: ayanag@nmsu.edu
Field and Research Interests:
Theoretical and Experimental Condensed Matter Physics, Material Science, X-Ray Diffraction, Ellipsometric Techniques, Thin film characterization.
About Me:
Hello! My name is Ayana Ghosh. My home resides in the state of West Bengal, India. I graduated from University of Michigan with my Bachelor’s Degrees (BS) in Physics and Abstract Mathematics in May 2015. Besides being a hardcore physics enthusiast, my interests lie in writing, solving mathematical problems, dance and travelling. I believe that Mother Nature has created the universe in a way where everything ties itself together. To be able to express it in terms of mathematics or physics, is the hard part! And that’s what fetches me into studying this subject. As once Tagore mentioned, “Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it” , I think with every scientific discovery, we unfold and let ourselves dive into many more mysteries, to understand the universe better.
Mohammad Al Abullah
BS (Physics), University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Contact:
Email: mamun@nmsu.edu
Field and Research Interests:
Novel devices, magnetic and magnetoelectric phases.
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Undergraduate Students
Douglas Brown
BS (Physics) in pursuit, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM.
Contact:
Email: dabrown@nmsu.edu
Field and Research Interests:
Coherent diffraction imaging and phase retrival algorithms.
Samuel Dijani
MS (Computer Science) in pursuit, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM.
Contact:
Email: dijiani@nmsu.edu
Field and Research Interests:
Phase retrival algorithms.
Queenie Fortaleza
BS Mechanical Engineering in pursuit, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM.
Contact:
Email: qfortaleza@nmsu.edu
Field and Research Interests:
Imagning and scattering, magnetic nanostructures for petroleum.
Cameron Radosevich
BS Mechanical Engineering in pursuit, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM.
Contact:
Email: camerados@gmail.com
Field and Research Interests:
Ultrafast dynamics, light and soft X-rays, coherent scattering.
Doing good science is not just about producing data, it should also tell a new story
A list of all group publications as a PDF can be obtained here .
Access to PDF versions of the manuscripts is obtained by clicking on the DOI links. If your domain does not provide you access, please email Dr. Fohtung for reprints.
Selected Publications
Research Directions
Do you want to know about the read-head inside your computer works? Why some butterflis are blue, yellow and multi-colored? The arrangement of spins in magnetic nanostructures and how they fluctuate? How your TV remote control works? How information is stored and read in your “pen drives” and flash memory? The quantum fluctuations of atoms in single crystals of solid Helium at temperatures near absolute zero? Or the structure and dynamics of stripe domains and puddles in ferroelectric, ferromagnetic and superconducting phases? These topics and more are investigated by the Fohtung Group, primarily using the interaction of radiation (photons, neutrons ans ions) with condensed matter systems. The focus of our research is the study of the structure and dynamics of condensed matter.
Our We investigate the quantum interaction between electromagnetic radiation (photons and neutrons) with condensed and soft matter at the nanoscale. To this end, we are interested in developing novel optical metrology (lens-less microscopy, coherent diffraction imaging with photons at synchrotrons and XFELs) and neutron scattering techniques to probe spatial and temporal dynamics due to competing charge-, spin-, orbital and lattice degree of freedoms at the nanoscale. Applications of our research includes Magneto-electric based nano-mechanical oscillators, sensing, quantum photonics, Magneto-electric conversion of optical energy to electricity, transparent ceramics and biomimetics. We also focus on training the next generation of innovative students/scientists. We aim to foster an environment that is conducive to learning, creativity, and personal development.
Our group is broadly engaged in the study of the structure and dynamics of condensed matter using the techniques of optical, x-ray and neutron scattering. For this purpose, we use in-house x-ray sources and diffractometers, Optical Metrology, while most of our studies require an intensity that can only be provided at synchrotron sources and XFELs.
Towards quantum biomemetics and bio-inspired quantum devices
For decades, humans have mimicked nature for inspiration to create or optimize devices and machines, as well as industrial fabrication, characterization processes and strategies. Besides studying quantized plasma oscillations (plasmons) in metallic nanostructures and at interfaces between metals and dielectrics, we dwell into a branch of science which designs materials and machines inspired in the structure and function of biological systems. Since nature possesses a diversity of photonic structures that have been fine-tuned over millions of years by trial and error; we study a range of bio-inspired features such as structural color vs pigmentary color with the aim of building new photonic devices.
A Conventional broadband reflection microscope with different angles of illumination (a) is used to image the bright metallic blue colored structures of the Morpho Marcus butterfly wing with illumination from all angles (b) and to show the directional dependency of the reflected light with blue wavelength synthesized in a pseudo-color image (c) where blue channel of the 2pm illumination image is assigned to a blue channel of the synthesized image, blue channel of the 8pm illumination image is assigned to red channel of the synthesized image and blue channel of 5pm illumination image is assigned to the green channel of the synthesized image. This is a direct evidence of structural coloring.
Spintronics
As an alternative to electronic charge, the storage and transport of electronic spin in semiconductor devices – “spintronics”, may revolutionize the electronic device industry, with spin based transistors , opto-electronic devices, and memory. Moreover, the ability to preserve coherent spin states in conventional semiconductors and quantum dots may eventually enable quantum computing in the solid state.
Magnetoelectrics
In the so-called intrinsic multiferroics (those that naturally combine magnetic and electric order parameters), the magnetoelectric coupling is however often weak and heterogeneous multiferroics (composite materials) are currently developed to optimize order parameter coupling. Magnetic and ferroelectric materials are thus artificially combined and two main paths are followed to achieve the magnetoelectric coupling: either strains or modulation of charge carrier density. Several works have been recently reported on strains-driven magnetoelectric coupling, generally achieved when combining magnetostrictive and piezoelectric materials and on the control of ferromagnetic properties achieved through the modulation of the carrier density by applying a gate voltage. In this domain, the effects on ferromagnetic semiconductors have been intensively investigated because its ferromagnetic properties are function of carrier concentration; But electric field control of coercivity, anisotropy, Curie temperature in ferromagnetic metallic layers have also been recently reported. Complex magnetic oxides are other interesting candidates for charge-driven magnetoelectric coupling because of high sensitivity of strongly correlated magnetic systems to competing electronic ground states. Charge plays especially a prominent role in double exchange, hopping and orbital overlap. A large charge-driven magnetoelectric coupling effect has thus been reported in Sr-doped lanthanum manganite (LSMO)/ferroelectric (PZT) composite structure.
We aim at taking an alternative path to multiferroics by designing a piezoelectric-ferromagnetic-semiconductor heterostructures or nanoscale devices in which the applied electric field induces strain field that propagates into the ferromagnetic material and alters the its magnetization.
In magneto-electronic materials such as multiferroics an external electric field displaces ions from their equilibrium positions, which alters the magnetostatic and exchange interactions yielding magnetoelectric coupling. There has been extensive effort to realize multiferroic materials in thin films and nanostructures. In ferromagnetic/piezoelectric composite structures (which is the focus of this proposal), electric field induced strain in the piezoelectric material can alter the magnetization of the ferromagnetic material due to magnetostrictive effects. Recent theoretical calculations suggest that in ferroelectric insulator/ferromagnetic heterostructures that ferroelectric displacements of the interfacial atoms may be reversed by electric fields, significantly altering the interfacial moment or anisotropy. More generally magneto-electric effects may be a common feature of interfaces between dielectrics and metals. Understanding and control of these effects may ultimately lead to new memory and spintronics logic elements.
Dr. Edwin Fohtung earned his bachelor’s and master’s degree from the institute of physics, nanotechnology and telecommunication of the St Petersburg State Polytechnic University Russia, and his PhD. from University of Freiburg in Germany.
While pursuing his PhD studies in Germany from 2007 to 2010, he was employed as a scientific research assistant at the ANKA synchrotron light source facility at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). During this time he became fascinated and with the use of neutrons and (in)coherent photons produced from light sources such as ANKA, ESRF, DESY to study a wide range of condensed matter systems. His interest turned into a career prospect as he moved to the University of California at San Diego as a postdoc in the physics department.
Dr. Edwin Fohtung received his tenure at New Mexico State University; he also held the position of Lansce (Los Alamos Neutron Scattering) Professor of Physics and Materials at the Assistant level.
Currently Dr. Fohtung is an Associate Professor of Material Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
His Current research explores (via experimental and numerical modeling) the use of neutron, synchrotron based novel coherent x-ray scattering techniques, optical (laser-based) pump-probe experimental techniques, pulsed electric and magnetic fields to probe a variety of emergent condensed matter systems, ranging from multiferroics, magnetoelectric, electronic, straintronics, orbitronic and magnetic phases arising due to competing and/or coupled charge, spin, orbital ordering and lattice interactions. Other soft matters systems such as colloids, nanoparticles, polymers, fluids and glasses are of interest. Dr. Edwin Fohtung also aims to foster an environment that is conducive to learning, creativity, and personal development.
