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Showing 23 results for Researcher: Benjamin J. Lawrie

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    April 27, 2026

    1 MIN READ

    Programming Quantum Phases Through Epitaxy

    Scientific Achievement: Molecular beam epitaxy and first principles calculations demonstrate that substrate termination can be used to control the crystal phase and functional properties.Significance and Impact: Epitaxy provides a powerful “design knob” for stabilizing targeted quantum states through interfacial phase engineering, thereby enabling new technologies such as altermagnetic spintronics and multifunctional electronics.DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5c14582

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    March 21, 2026

    1 MIN READ

    Nanoscale Control of 2D Quantum Systems

    Scientific Achievement: Discovered nanoscale exciton confinement in a monolayer 2D semiconductor induced by electron-beam patterning via an unconventional electrostatic gating effect.Significance and Impact: Provides a pathway for precise, rewritable manipulation of quantum photonic devices, exciton routers, and analog quantum simulators.DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202524575

  • ORNL Placeholder Image

    March 4, 2025

    3 MIN READ

    Single-qubit sensing puts new spin on quantum materials discovery

    Working at nanoscale dimensions, billionths of a meter in size, a team of scientists led by ORNL revealed a new way to measure high-speed fluctuations in magnetic materials. Knowledge obtained by these new measurements could be used to advance technologies ranging from traditional computing to the emerging field of quantum computing.

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    February 3, 2025

    1 MIN READ

    Hidden Nature of Spin Interactions in Ferromagnet Revealed

    Scientific Achievement: Hidden spin fluctuations in a room-temperature ferromagnet consistent with three-dimensional spin interactions were unveiled by NV magnetometry and relaxometry.Significance and Impact: The power-law scaling observed in the magnetic texture of Sr2FeReO6 provides new opportunities to understand how local spin-fluctuations become correlated near quantum and classical phase transitions.DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c05401

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    September 29, 2023

    1 MIN READ

    Flipping the magnetic switch via strain

    Scientific Achievement: A hidden magnetic phase was discovered and controlled in the ultra high-conductivity, nonmagnetic oxide PdCoO2 through targeted straining of the incipiently magnetic CoO2 and Pd layer using helium implantation.Significance and Impact: Gaining continuous control of magnetic properties will open the door for precisely tailored properties that can be used to realize new nanoscale magnetic devices with low-loss interconnects in a monolithic platform.DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c01065

  • ORNL Placeholder Image

    March 22, 2023

    1 MIN READ

    Soft templating of superconducting vortex lattices

    Scientific Achievement: Twin boundaries in FeSe preferentially attract superconducting vortices. The resulting incommensurate potential produces regular 2D and 1D vortex lattices, precisely variable intervortex distance, and profound geometric size effects.Significance and Impact: Control over vortex interactions is crucial to quantum information devices. Our findings open an intrinsic path to control of vortex geometry, bypassing damaging lithography in favor of topological defects and self-organization.DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c00125

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    August 23, 2022

    1 MIN READ

    Kinetic control of surfaces drives bulk magnetic properties

    Scientific Achievement: Polarized neutron reflectometry revealed that the surface oxidation of the intrinsic magnetic topological insulator MnBi2Te4 is kinetically limited to the topmost layer, determining the bulk magnetism.Significance and Impact: A precise understanding of the surface magnetic states is critical to understand emergence of quantized edge states, which is crucial for applications in next-generation microelectronics.DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202202234

  • ORNL Placeholder Image

    September 23, 2021

    1 MIN READ

    Topology Drives Charge Density Wave in Kagome Superconductor

    Scientific Achievement: Advanced photoelectron spectroscopy revealed that the topological band structure in the kagome superconductor (Rb,Cs)V3Sb5 can host an unconventional charge density wave (CDW). Significance and Impact: This unconventional CDW constitutes an intertwined state that could provide a pathway toward using topological superconductivity for quantum information science.DOI: 10.1103/ PhysRevX.11.031050

  • ORNL Placeholder Image

    September 16, 2021

    1 MIN READ

    Correlated electrons enter the extreme quantum limit

    Scientific Achievement: Strained SrNbO3 films yielded a Dirac semi-metal phase with high-mobility electrons, leading to the discovery of fractional quantum states and giant mass enhancement in the extreme quantum limit (XQL).Significance and Impact: Work discovered the first oxide-based Dirac semimetal reaching the XQL, providing a novel strategy to create correlated topological quantum materials with exotic physical phenomena useful for next-generation microelectronics and quantum information science.DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abf9631

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