The Jeong Group

Resonance Lab

Questions

“What are the most exotic forms and behaviour of quantum matter that the fundamental principles of our Universe (or a different Universe) would allow? Can we realise on our planet Earth (or elsewhere in the Universe) all such exotic forms and behaviour of matter?”

Our vision is to deepen understanding of quantum matter through design and discovery. Design - we create and control exotic quantum states of matter with guidance of theoretical development. Discovery - we explore uncharted territory of materials under extreme conditions.

Anomalous spin transport

Ink drops into water - any different in the quantum world? We look into how spin fluctuations propagate in one-dimensional quantum systems. Steady-state transport is one of the simplest of non-equilibrium situations with a long history. However, the field is completely reshaping due to the recent theoretical discovery of super-diffusion in one-dimensional Heisenberg spin chains and its unexpected link to the non-equilibrium universality class of Kardar-Parisi-Zhang. This research is supported by the EPSRC via a New Investigator Award (2023-2025).

Strain tuning of quantum magnets

Just a bit of stress could make our lives much more dynamic - same for quantum matter. Some exotic quantum phases such as quantum spin liquids (highly entangled spins with topological order - potentially useful for building quantum computers) are predicted to exist in theory. Searching for them in real materials, however, is a great challenge because the theoretical models sought after are fine tuned. Then, why don't we directly tune the materials parameters to realise the theoretical models? We use uniaxial strain to tune the quantum magnets to realise exotic quantum ground states, excitations and critical points. This research received seed funding from the University of Birmingham (BRIDGE) and the Royal Society (Research Grant, 2022-2023).

As our research is funded by public research councils and charities, and also supported in various ways by our colleagues, we are committed to applying our knowledge and sharing expertise for the benefit of greater communities and society. We look through the famous Congressional Testimony by Dr Wilson.

Dr Robert R. Wilson

Founding Director of FermiLab

“When we spend ... the taxpayers' money, then we have an obligation to give a fair return immediately.”

All group members are encouraged to engage in one of the following themes (or can suggest their own!)

Fundamental physics with cryogenics

Our group is part of the QSNET consortium, which delivers a project of the national programme, Quantum Technologies for Fundamental Physics, jointly funded by EPSRC and STFC. The goal of the QSNET project is to test stability of fundamental constants such as the fine structure constant and the mass ratio of the proton to the electron. The plan is to link different kinds of Quantum Clocks at different locations. At Birmingham, a highly charged-ion clock using a cryogenic ion trap is under construction, for which we share our expertise in cryogenic techniques.

G. Barontini et al., EPJ Quantum Technology, 9(1), 12 (2022).

Cold energy using magnetic materials

One can raise or lower the temperature of certain materials by applying or removing a magnetic field, respectively. This is called the Magneto-Caloric Effect, which forms a basis of cleaner and more efficient cooling or refrigeration. We share our expertise in magnetic characterisation to support researchers from chemistry, materials and metallurgy for their new designs (e.g., involving frustration) and processing (e.g., additive manufacturing or 3D printing) of advanced magneto-caloric materials.

J. Head et al., Chemistry of Materials, 32 (23), 10184 (2020).