Master classes

On Monday evening 17 January 2011 four master classes for 25 PhD-students each, were organised. The speakers were John Pendry (metamaterials), Bart van Wees (graphene), David Quéré (hydronamics on interfaces) and Boris Kayser (cp violation). An abstract of the master classes is given below.

These master class lectures are available to watch at www.citytv.nl.

John Pendry
Transformation optics at optical frequencies
Transformation optics tells us how a distortion of space, and the objects it contains, maps into changes of the effective electric and magnetic responses of the distorted materials. This can be exploited to generate new devices from familiar ones. For example it is well known that a slab of negatively refracting material has lens like properties and can focus light. However the images are always of exactly the same size as the objects. This restriction can be lifted by applying transformation optics to create a negatively refracting magnifying lens that also has the property of sub wavelength. In the exact formulation both electrical and magnetic properties are equally affected by the transformation, but in the near field approximation at optical frequencies we can neglect the magnetic component. This leads to some novel devices that will be described in this class.

Bart van Wees
Graphene: From Scotch tape technique to anomalous quantum Hall effect
I will give basic introduction into the physics and technology of graphene, a one atom thick hexagonal lattice of carbon atoms. Starting from the elementary electronic sp2 bonding states between adjacent carbon atoms, I will show how the two-dimensional electronic bandstructure of graphene is be obtained. The role of the Schrodinger equation is replaced by the so-called Dirac equation, which decribes a two-component wave function. This leads to very rich physics and a interesting analogy with high energy physics. From an experimental point of view I will give a demonstration of the Scotch tape technique which made it possible to obtain single graphene layers for the first time. This made it possible to observed new effects, such as the anomalous quantum Hall effect, in field effect transistors based on single graphene layers. Various techniques to improve the quality and/or the quantity of the graphene layers will be discussed, including suspended graphene and techniques to grow graphene on various substrates. Finally a future outlook will be given.

David Quéré
Wetting and roughness
Two hundreds years ago, Thomas Young understood how the solid/liquid contact is dictated by surface forces. Our plan is to discuss how the solid roughness modifies (quite dramatically) this law. Roughness can be either accidental, or set at a surface with micro-machined extures, which decides the resulting properties: super-hydrophilicity, water repellency, slip, anti-fogging properties, etc. We present recent developments in this lively field of surface science.

Boris Kayser
Neutrino Physics: Present and Future
We will review the physics of neutrino oscillation, and summarize what has been learned from oscillation and other data during the last dozen years. We will discuss recent surprises that may point to new interactions and new particles. Then we will turn to the future: What are the open questions, why are they interesting, and how can we answer them through future experiments?