Physicist Yongtao Cui at the University of California, Riverside, joins a distinguished group of 21 mid-career researchers from around the country named Experimental Physics Investigators this year by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Each investigator receives a $1.35 million, five-year grant to advance the frontiers of fundamental research in experimental physics.
“From the start, our aim has been to accelerate progress at the frontier of experimental physics by giving brilliant mid-career scientists the kind of flexible, sustained support that federal grants rarely can,” said Theodore Hodapp, program director for the Experimental Physics Investigators Initiative. “That freedom lets them take on risky, high-reward experiments and follow ideas when research results lead them down new pathways.”
Cui’s project, titled “Nanoscale microwave spectroscopy of collective modes in two-dimensional many-body electronic and excitonic systems,” will develop advanced experimental techniques to probe how strongly interacting electrons organize into coordinated states. These states can include phases such as electron crystals and excitonic phases.
An excitonic phase is a state of matter in a solid-state material like a semiconductor or insulator where bound electron-hole pairs called excitons condense into a collective quantum state. Within this phase, energy moves through a material like a semiconductor without carrying any net electrical charge.
Cui, an associate professor of physics and astronomy, said the research comes at an important moment for the field.
“Recent advances in 2D materials device engineering have enabled devices in which electron interactions can dominate — opening an important experimental regime that has historically been difficult to access,” he said.
Cui’s group has experience fabricating these specialized devices and developing experimental techniques that can probe collective modes at the appropriate time and length scales. By studying these collective modes, his team aims to understand fundamental principles governing how novel electronic phases emerge from strong interactions.
“Such discoveries could ultimately help guide future efforts to develop high-performance quantum technologies and electronic devices,” Cui said.
The grant will also support graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, helping train the next generation of quantum scientists. In addition, the funding will allow Cui’s group to acquire specialized, state-of-the-art instrumentation needed for the research.
“This grant provides the crucial support needed to pursue ambitious, high-risk, high-reward research avenues,” Cui said. “With the support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, we can push into uncharted experimental frontiers and explore bold ideas with high potential for discovery.”
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