Floquet-Bloch band structure of a Dirac material. From Y.Liu G.Gaetrner, J. Huckabee, A.Suslov, L. Foa Torres, P.Barbara, N.Kalugin. APS March Meeting 2023, A32.00007 https://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR23/Session/A32.7
Rapid development of quantum information technologies, quantum computation, and quantum materials which will be the “hardware” of the quantum progress, leads to the new technological revolution. Our interest here is quantum materials, more precisely- the new states of matter induced by light. We go beyond the crystal-structure- defined materials, exploring the possibility of modifying materials that do not have topological edge states and are topologically trivial. We try to create situations where light can act as a switch to induce Floquet-Bloch band structure modifications in atomically thin materials. Driving two-dimensional materials away from equilibrium with steady-state illumination, we expect to create new quantum phases “on demand”.
We combine our quantum materials research with the development of a new education program in quantum materials and technologies at New Mexico Tech, with the possibility of involvement of students from other colleges and universities.
Another direction of our interest is materials for separation and biointerfaces. After years of research with graphene and graphite organic chemistry, we are intrigued to engineer interfaces with biomolecules, for the purposes of extraction and purification, and also in their endogenous contexts. A critical insight came from connecting our long experience with electronics and the electrical activity of certain biological tissues, particularly neurons. Current electrode-based electrophysiological methods in neuroscience experience a number of limitations, including the lack of simple methods to molecularly address extracellular electrodes to specific neuron types. We investigate the ways to overcome these limitations by creating carbon-based electrodes with specific surface affinity endowed by covalent attachment of binding molecules.
https://communities.springernature.com/users/345274-nikolai-kalugin
HA-tag-functionalized surface with associated fluorophore-coated HA-tag antibody. Insets show molecular detail of graphite surface attachments. Some amino acids are drawn as spheres with corresponding letter codes for simplicity of view (H = histidine, G = glycine, A = alanine, Y = tyrosine, D = aspartic acid, P = proline, V = valine). From Candelaria, L., Kalugin, P.N., Kowalski, B.M. et al. Covalent Epitope Decoration of Carbon Electrodes using Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis. Sci Rep 9, 17805 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-54000-9