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Chinedu Ekuma | |
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Alma mater | Ebonyi State University, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Southern University, Louisiana State University |
Known for | Typical medium dynamical cluster approximation, Defects in materials, Development of machine learning models, Strongly correlated electron systems |
Awards | U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Alan Berman Research Award, George F. Adams Distinguished Research Scientist, National Research Council Fellowship |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Materials Science, Computational Physics, Machine Learning |
Institutions | Lehigh University |
Chinedu Ekuma is a Nigerian-born computational physicist, working in the field of condensed matter physics, primarily focusing on the computational design and discovery of new materials, first-principles modeling of strongly correlated systems, and the development and integration of advanced machine learning techniques. Ekuma is an assistant professor of Physics at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.
Ekuma was raised in Lagos, Nigeria. He began his academic journey at Ebonyi State University in Nigeria, where he earned a B.Sc. with Highest honor in Applied Physics in 2007. He continued his studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, obtaining a M.Sc. in Theoretical Physics in 2009. He then moved to the United States for further education, completing another M.Sc. in Computational Condensed Matter Physics at Southern University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2010, followed by a Ph.D. in Physics from Louisiana State University in 2015.
After completing his Ph.D., Ekuma held several positions. He was a National Research Council Research Fellow at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.. Following this, he assumed the role of George F. Adams Distinguished Research Scientist at the U.S. Army Research Research Laboratory, where he made significant advancements in the field of computational design of advanced materials.
Ekuma has garnered recognition for his contributions to the field of strongly correlated electron systems, with a particular focus on the investigation of material imperfections and their interplay with electron-electron interactions. [1] His doctoral research, for example, offered novel insights into the interplay between Anderson and Mott physics in strongly correlated systems. He is credited with pioneering the development of the typical medium dynamical cluster approximation (TMDCA), a methodology that enhances the dynamical mean-field theory by integrating spatial correlations and intrinsic order parameter. This advancement significantly improves the modeling of Coulomb interactions and material imperfections, facilitating advancements in both theoretical understanding and practical applications. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Ekuma also co-developed the Bagayoko, Zhao, Williams, Ekuma, and Franklin (BZW-EF) method within the linear combination of atomic orbitals (LCAO) framework, which has been used to accurately describe the ground state properties of semiconductors. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
Additionally, Ekuma is adept at developing and employing high-performance computing (HPC), big-data analytics, and advanced data-driven techniques to refine computational models. His research has significantly influenced both the computational studies and the experimental synthesis of advanced quantum materials. [12] [13] [14] A notable achievement in Ekuma’s recent work is the computational design of a new quantum material, CuxGeSe/SnS. This material is distinguished by its unique intermediate band states, which are promising for solar cell applications due to their potential to significantly enhance the efficiency of photovoltaic devices beyond the theoretical Shockley-Queisser efficiency limit for silicon-based solar cells. [15]
Fermi liquid theory is a theoretical model of interacting fermions that describes the normal state of the conduction electrons in most metals at sufficiently low temperatures. The theory describes the behavior of many-body systems of particles in which the interactions between particles may be strong. The phenomenological theory of Fermi liquids was introduced by the Soviet physicist Lev Davidovich Landau in 1956, and later developed by Alexei Abrikosov and Isaak Khalatnikov using diagrammatic perturbation theory. The theory explains why some of the properties of an interacting fermion system are very similar to those of the ideal Fermi gas, and why other properties differ.
In physics, topological order is a kind of order in the zero-temperature phase of matter. Macroscopically, topological order is defined and described by robust ground state degeneracy and quantized non-Abelian geometric phases of degenerate ground states. Microscopically, topological orders correspond to patterns of long-range quantum entanglement. States with different topological orders cannot change into each other without a phase transition.
A two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) is a scientific model in solid-state physics. It is an electron gas that is free to move in two dimensions, but tightly confined in the third. This tight confinement leads to quantized energy levels for motion in the third direction, which can then be ignored for most problems. Thus the electrons appear to be a 2D sheet embedded in a 3D world. The analogous construct of holes is called a two-dimensional hole gas (2DHG), and such systems have many useful and interesting properties.
In physics, interaction-free measurement is a type of measurement in quantum mechanics that detects the position, presence, or state of an object without an interaction occurring between it and the measuring device. Examples include the Renninger negative-result experiment, the Elitzur–Vaidman bomb-testing problem, and certain double-cavity optical systems, such as Hardy's paradox.
Car–Parrinello molecular dynamics or CPMD refers to either a method used in molecular dynamics or the computational chemistry software package used to implement this method.
In condensed matter physics, a string-net is an extended object whose collective behavior has been proposed as a physical mechanism for topological order by Michael A. Levin and Xiao-Gang Wen. A particular string-net model may involve only closed loops; or networks of oriented, labeled strings obeying branching rules given by some gauge group; or still more general networks.
Atomistix ToolKit (ATK) is a commercial software for atomic-scale modeling and simulation of nanosystems. The software was originally developed by Atomistix A/S, and was later acquired by QuantumWise following the Atomistix bankruptcy. QuantumWise was then acquired by Synopsys in 2017.
Positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS) or sometimes specifically referred to as positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) is a non-destructive spectroscopy technique to study voids and defects in solids.
Frank Verstraete is a Belgian quantum physicist who is working on the interface between quantum information theory and quantum many-body physics. He pioneered the use of tensor networks and entanglement theory in quantum many body systems. He holds the Leigh Trapnell Professorship of Quantum Physics at the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Cambridge, and is professor at the Faculty of Physics at Ghent University.
A trion is a bound state of three charged particles. A negatively charged trion in crystals consists of two electrons and one hole, while a positively charged trion consists of two holes and one electron. The binding energy of a trion is largely determined by the exchange interaction between the two electrons (holes). The ground state of a negatively charged trion is a singlet. The triplet state is unbound in the absence of an additional potential or sufficiently strong magnetic field.
Piers Coleman is a British-born theoretical physicist, working in the field of theoretical condensed matter physics. Coleman is professor of physics at Rutgers University in New Jersey and at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Valleytronics is an experimental area in semiconductors that exploits local extrema ("valleys") in the electronic band structure. Certain semiconductors have multiple "valleys" in the electronic band structure of the first Brillouin zone, and are known as multivalley semiconductors. Valleytronics is the technology of control over the valley degree of freedom, a local maximum/minimum on the valence/conduction band, of such multivalley semiconductors.
Weyl semimetals are semimetals or metals whose quasiparticle excitation is the Weyl fermion, a particle that played a crucial role in quantum field theory but has not been observed as a fundamental particle in vacuum. In these materials, electrons have a linear dispersion relation, making them a solid-state analogue of relativistic massless particles.
The term Dirac matter refers to a class of condensed matter systems which can be effectively described by the Dirac equation. Even though the Dirac equation itself was formulated for fermions, the quasi-particles present within Dirac matter can be of any statistics. As a consequence, Dirac matter can be distinguished in fermionic, bosonic or anyonic Dirac matter. Prominent examples of Dirac matter are graphene and other Dirac semimetals, topological insulators, Weyl semimetals, various high-temperature superconductors with -wave pairing and liquid helium-3. The effective theory of such systems is classified by a specific choice of the Dirac mass, the Dirac velocity, the gamma matrices and the space-time curvature. The universal treatment of the class of Dirac matter in terms of an effective theory leads to a common features with respect to the density of states, the heat capacity and impurity scattering.
Antonio Helio de Castro Neto is a Brazilian-born physicist. He is the founder and director of the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials at the National University of Singapore. He is a condensed matter theorist known for his work in the theory of metals, magnets, superconductors, graphene and two-dimensional materials. He is a distinguished professor in the Departments of Materials Science Engineering, and Physics and a professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He was elected as a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2003. In 2011 he was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
David Tománek (born July 1954) is a U.S.-Swiss physicist of Czech origin and researcher in nanoscience and nanotechnology. He is Emeritus Professor of Physics at Michigan State University. He is known for predicting the structure and calculating properties of surfaces, atomic clusters including the C60 buckminsterfullerene, nanotubes, nanowires and nanohelices, graphene, and two-dimensional materials including phosphorene.
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Elbio Rubén Dagotto is an Argentinian-American theoretical physicist and academic. He is a distinguished professor in the department of physics and astronomy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Distinguished Scientist in the Materials Science and Technology Division at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The Typical Medium Dynamical Cluster Approximation (TMDCA) is a non-perturbative approach designed to model and obtain the electronic ground state of strongly correlated many-body systems. It addresses critical aspects of mean-field treatments of strongly correlated systems, such as the lack of an intrinsic order parameter to characterize quantum phase transitions and the description of spatial dependent features. Additionally, the TMDCA tackles the challenge of accurately modeling strongly correlated systems when imperfections disrupt the fundamental assumptions of band theory, as seen in density functional theory, such as the independent particle approximation and material homogeneity.