ARL-North East: Topological Materials and Interfacial Coupling for Electronic Device Application

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) seeks a highly motivated, well informed, cross-disciplinary and skilled postdoctoral fellow with experience in the synthesis and fabrication of high quality topological, magnetic materials and heterostructures, and in electrical and magnetic characterization techniques. This postdoctoral fellow will investigate controls for physical processes that underlie theoretical descriptions of concept topological electronic devices (TEDs) for efficient electronics, sensors, and/or radio frequency (RF) technologies and demonstrate them. The fellow will serve as an interface between government and academia, stationed in the laboratory of Dr. Jagadeesh Moodera at MIT and collaborate with other ARL researchers pursuing similar goals. ARL is accelerating a strategic initiative to move the physics of topological materials to the engineering of emerging electronic devices that may solve future battlefield challenges with ultra-efficient electronics and RF technology. Theorists have modeled diverse device concepts that numerically promise to far exceed today's state of the art for sensing, sub-threshold switching with markedly reduced energy consumption, energy harvesting and radio frequency or even THz electronics. Many of these opportunities can take advantage of topological surface currents and spin-orbit coupling at room temperature even with today's imperfect materials. This fellowship is a unique opportunity to take full advantage of ARL's strategic intra-extramural reach with a seamless collaboration among ARL laboratories, extended campuses and leading academic scientists. Success will be defined by demonstrating underlying phenomena above cryogenic temperatures revealing that theoretically proposed concepts are viable. The gap between today's knowledge and tomorrow's technology in this area lies in the device physics that spans the fundamental physics and the electronics engineering.