Claudia Ojeda-Aristizabal

Society of Physics Students Advisor, and Associate Professor - Condensed Matter Experiment

  • Ph.D. Physics, Université Paris-sud XI, Orsay France (2010)
  • M. Sc. Condensed Matter Physics, École Normale Supérieure, Paris France (2007)
  • B.Sc. Physics, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá Colombia (2004)

Postdoctoral training:

  • University of Maryland, College Park (2011-2013)
  • University of California, Berkeley (2013-2015)

Research Interests

  • Condensed Matter Experiment
  • Low Dimensional Systems
  • Quantum Coherent Transport
  • Layered Materials
  • Graphene

Graphene is the first truly two dimensional crystal observed in nature. Since its discovery in 2004, physicists have been exploring the exciting properties of this 2D system and its potential applications. Graphene has opened the door to new possibilities for transparent flexible electronics and has challenged condensed matter physicists to study for the first time relativistic effects in a solid!

Graphene has introduced the field of layered materials, materials where strong in plane bonds hold the crystal together and weak Van der Waals forces between the layers allow the cleaving into atomic layers. Among the crystals with a "thin film" version we can find insulators, semiconductors, topological insulators, dichalcogenides and transition metal oxides. These materials not only bring a wealth of phenomena present in 2D systems but also allow the use of experimental techniques that are non-accessible to their parent crystals, such as the use of a back gate to tune the Fermi level at the surface of the material, and most importantly the stacking of different thin crystals into a heterostructure.

In my group, we are interested in the Physics of 2D materials as well as in the phenomena found at the interface between stacked layered structures. Using techniques of nanofabrication and electronic transport at low temperatures, we are able to address questions of interest in Fundamental Physics and relevant in the advance of electronics.

Can we induce quantum coherent transport in these 2D materials? Can we tune this quantum coherent behavior with an external parameter like an electric field? Can we find novel phenomena at the interface between materials in a stacked heterostructure?

In addition to electronic transport, we perform angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) experiments. This powerful experimental technique uses the high energy light emitted by a synchrotron to give insight about the energy and momentum of the electrons propagating inside our layered materials. ARPES opens the possibility of an exciting challenge; can we characterize our heterostructures in-situ as we stack them together before building an electronic device at the lab?

Please take a look to our Nanoelectronics Group to learn more about our experiments!