Engineering quantum materials compatible with semiconductors

Research in the Goldman Group emphasizes engineering quantum materials for emerging optoelectronics, high power electronics, and the building blocks for quantum computation. We are primarily experimentalists using ultra-high vacuum techniques including molecular-beam epitaxy (“million buck evaporator”), scanning tunneling microscopy, and both blanket and focused ion implantation. We have also developed “experimentalist” computational efforts aimed at enhancing understanding of solute incorporation in alloys (Monte Carlo-Molecular Dynamics simulations of ion-solid interactions) and plasmon-enhanced light-emission from semiconductor nanocomposites (electromagnetic simulations of light-matter interactions). Our primary focus is on processing-structure-property relationships in epitaxial semiconductor films, nanostructures, and heterostructures. Recently, our efforts have expanded to include topologically non-trivial materials based upon covalently-bonded and layered semiconductors and semimetals. In this talk, I will present highlights of on-going projects and opportunities for new graduate students.

Bio
Rachel S. Goldman is the Maria Goeppert Mayer Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Physics, and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan (UM). She is the Director of the Center for Materials Innovation, the NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at UM, and leads a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. In addition, she serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Applied Physics and as elected Councilor for the Division of Materials Physics of the American Physical Society (APS).

Goldman received degrees from UM (B.S. Physics), Cornell University (M.S. Applied Physics), and the University of California, San Diego (PhD Materials Science). Following her PhD, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University prior to returning to UM as the Dow Corning Assistant Professor. She spent a sabbatical year as the Augustus Anson Whitney Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. At UM, she has served as the Graduate Chair of Materials Science and Engineering (2008-2012) and as Associate Director of the Applied Physics Program (2010-2025). Goldman is a Fellow of the APS, the AVS, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.