DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM | Seeing Electrons in Graphene: A Model 2-Dimensional Material

Speaker: Tony Heinz (Columbia University)

The past few years have witnessed a surge of activity in the study of graphene, a stable sheet comprised of just a single atomic layer of carbon atoms in a honeycomb lattice structure. Indeed, this year's Nobel Prize recognized two researchers for their pioneering contributions to this field. We will describe some the reasons for the intense interest in this new material system, highlighting its unusual electronic dispersion and its distinctive chemical and mechanical properties. We will then show how we can use light to probe the nature of excited electrons and their interactions in this model 2-D material.