Bo Yuan receives Humboldt Research Fellowship
Bo Yuan, a postdoctoral researcher in Andrea Cavalleri’s Quantum Condensed Matter Dynamics group, has been awarded a Humboldt Research Fellowship.
Yuan investigates magnetic materials and their microscopic interactions in order to engineer their fundamental properties. Magnetic materials are not only an intriguing research field but also hold vast potential for advanced technologies such as more efficient memory storage devices and faster electronics.
Using non-linear phononics, a method pioneered by the Cavalleri group, researchers ‚shake‘ and strain the crystal structure of a solid with extremely short, strong laser pulses. These lattice distortions can cause radical changes in the material’s behavior, including its magnetic state. Effectively, the laser light acts as a precise and ultrafast switch that forces the material into a different state.
Yuan has been trying to find out if this method can also be used in materials beyond just simple ordered magnets: “Presently, the application of this new technique has been limited to conventional magnetic materials with simple magnetic orders. An important part of my postdoctoral research is to extend this technique to other interesting systems such as correlated paramagnets and spin liquids where one expects to see completely new physics.”
Bo Yuan studied Physics at the University of Toronto, Canada, where he also completed his PhD carrying out neutron and Xray scattering to study the magnetic excitations in a wide range of quantum materials. In 2021, he joined the Cavalleri group at the MPSD.
Receiving the Humboldt Research Fellowship is an immense encouragement, he says: “I am deeply honored by the award. Personally, it serves as a recognition of my previous work, and motivates me to continue to carry out high quality research in the future. More importantly, being awarded the Humboldt Fellowship as a postdoc at the MPSD also showcases the quality of research here at the Institute.“
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation awards fellowships to outstanding young scientists for research at an institution of their choice in Germany.
