Welcome to the Sood Lab at Princeton University!
We are a group of curious scientists and engineers working on fun problems in the areas of nanoscale thermal transport, microelectronics, and ultrafast science. Our approach involves visualizing materials on very fast timescales (down to a trillionth of a second!), and asking how this dynamic behavior can be controlled for applications in thermal management, energy-efficient computing, energy harvesting, and energy storage.
We are currently interested in the following questions: How is energy transported on nanometer length scales? Can we precisely manipulate heat flow at the atomic level? Is it possible to measure the temperature of individual atoms? Can we capture atomic-scale "movies" of materials with picosecond resolution? Can we image ultrafast atomic trajectories within functioning devices and measure the properties of transient states that form during switching? What are the picometer-scale atomic pathways inside electronic switches and how can measuring them reveal underlying energy landscapes? Can we engineer novel non-equilibrium states of matter through ultrafast stimulation?
We enjoy working on interdisciplinary problems in energy and computing, with a focus on understanding fundamental physical and chemical processes. Our research combines cutting-edge experimental work in our ultrafast laser lab at Princeton with experiments at electron and X-ray beamlines at national labs across the US.
Interested in joining us? We are always looking for talented and motivated graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and undergraduates. If you are a prospective PhD student, please apply to the MAE department's graduate program and list Prof. Sood as a potential advisor within the "materials" sub area (applications deadlines are usually in December). If you are interested in doing a postdoc, please send Prof. Sood your CV, with a short cover note summarizing your background and future interests, and include the names of 2-3 references. If you are an undergrad at Princeton, please contact Prof. Sood to discuss potential project openings.
Upcoming talks by group members
(Invited) A. Sood: Electronic Materials and Applications (ACerS), Symposium on Operando Characterization of Nanomaterials, Feb 2025, Denver CO
(Invited) A. Sood: ACS Spring, Symposium on Light-Matter Interactions in Molecular Systems & Emerging Semiconductors, March 2025, San Diego CA
(Invited) A. Sood: Princeton Materials Institute Annual Symposium, April 2025, Princeton NJ
(Invited) A. Sood: Condensed Matter Physics Seminar Series, Physics Department, Brown University, April 2025, Providence RI
(Contributed) A. Sood: Materials Research Society Spring Meeting, April 2025, Seattle WA
(Invited) A. Sood: SLAC National Laboratory workshop "Time-Resolved Science at Lightsources", April 2025, Menlo Park CA
(Invited) A. Sood: Princeton-GIA Diamond Symposium, May 2025, Princeton NJ
(Invited) A. Sood: TSRC Workshop on Nanoscale Thermal Transport, June 2025, Telluride CO
(Invited) A. Sood: Samsung Electronics, South Korea, July 2025, Virtual.
(Invited) A. Sood: SPIE Optics + Photonics, Spintronics XVIII, August 2025, San Diego CA
(Invited) A. Sood: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Workshop on 'Frontiers in Ultrafast Scattering of Electrons', August 2025, Menlo Park CA
News
(02/2025): Aditya is named to the Early Career Board of the American Chemical Society's journal Nano Letters!
(02/2025): We are thrilled to welcome our newest PhD students to the group: Nova Wu and Shreya Shukla! Read more about them here.
(02/2025): We are delighted to receive a SEAS Innovation Grant from the Dean of Engineering to explore the interface between ultrafast optics and electronics.
(01/2025): Our group will receive funding from the US Department of Energy as part of a newly announced Microelectronics Science Research Center, on a project led by the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. Our center will be called 'CHIME': Co-design and Heterogeneous Integration in Microelectronics for Extreme Environments. Working with collaborators at PPPL we will explore the extreme limits of phonon and electron transport in diamond for future electronics.
(12/2024): Our group is awarded funding from Samsung Electronics -- our first grant from an industry sponsor.
(12/2024) Our group receives a Grant for Innovative Research from the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. Our team is led by Prof. Yiguang Ju, with co-PIs: Profs. Alison Ferris, Michele Sarazen, and Claire White.
(12/2024) Aditya gives an invited talk at the Workshop on Innovative Nanoscale Devices and Systems (WINDS), in Kona, Hawaii.
(09/2024) Aditya gives an invited talk at the Telluride Workshop on "Fundamentals of Organic and Hybrid Mixed Ionic and Electronic Conductors"
(07/2024) Our group receives a grant from the Princeton Catalysis Initiative together with Prof. Emily Davidson in CBE.
(06/2024) Welcome to our three undergraduate summer researchers! We are delighted to host Aditi Singh and Sawooly Li, who are rising sophomores in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton, and Nathaniel Cohen, who is a rising sophomore in Physics and Astronomy at Cal State University Northridge.
(05/2024) Congratulations to the group's first alum, Henry Erdman, for completing his senior thesis! Henry is graduating with a bachelors degree in Physics. For his senior thesis, he did some beautiful experiments on thermal transport in 2D materials.
(05/2024) Welcome to our new postdoc, Dr. Mithun K.P! Mithun joins us after getting a PhD in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. He is an expert in ultrafast spectroscopy.
(05/2024) Touhid Ahmed passes his PhD general exam with flying colors. Congrats Touhid!
(05/2024) Aditya gives an invited talk at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab (PPPL) and tours the facilities.
(04/2024) New paper in Nature Reviews Materials on interlayer hybridization in van der Waals layered 2D materials!
(04/2024) Aditya gives an invited talk at the MRS Spring Meeting in Seattle. His talk was titled: "Dynamic manipulation of thermal & structural properties using electrochemical & electrical stimuli".
(03/2024) Aditya gives an invited talk at the University of Rochester. Thanks to Prof. Andrea Pickel for being a wonderful host!
(01/2024) Aditya receives a Princeton Engineering Teaching Commendation from the SEAS Dean for his course 'Energy transport at the nanoscale'. This course was developed and taught for the first time at Princeton.
(01/2024) Our group is awarded a seed grant from the Princeton Center for Complex Materials MRSEC!
(12/2023) Aditya gives an invited talk at 3M's Tech Forum in Minneapolis
(10/2023) Our group is awarded its first grant -- the Doctoral New Investigator Award from the ACS-PRF!
(09/2023) Welcome to Henry Erdman, senior in the Physics department who will work on his senior thesis with us!
(08/2023) Aditya is elected to the executive committee of the AVS Nanoscale Science & Technology Division
(08/2023) Aditya gives an invited talk at the SPIE Optics + Photonics conference in San Diego
(07/2023) Aditya delivers a keynote talk at the North American Thermal Analysis Society meeting in Rockville
(07/2023) Aditya receives a Princeton Engineering Teaching Commendation from the SEAS Dean for his course 'Phase transformations in materials'
(05/2023) Welcome to summer REU Nicholas Zhu! Nick will work on simulating electron diffraction.
(01/2023) We welcome our first PhD student -- Touhid Ahmed from ECE!
Press and Media
Paper in Nature Nanotechnology: Electronic bridge allows rapid energy sharing between semiconductors
American Vacuum Society award: Aditya Sood receives the Early Career Award from the AVS Nanoscale Science and Technology Division 2022
Materials Research Society award: Mattia Biesuz and Aditya Sood receive MRS Postdoctoral Awards
Stanford News: Aditya Sood receives 2021 LCLS Young Investigator Award
PhysicsWorld: Stop-motion movie of atoms reveals short-lived state in nanoscale switch
IEEE Spectrum: Insulator-conductor transition points toward ultra-efficient computing
Stanford News: Scientists take first snapshots of ultrafast switching in a quantum electronic device
PhysicsWorld: Heat transport goes ballistic across 2D thin films
Stanford News: How can we design electronic devices that don't overheat?
PhysicsWorld: Grain boundaries limit heat flow in diamond