Public Lecture: “Manipulating electrons in single atomic layers in graphene transistors and in fruit flies”

Please note, this page has been archived and is no longer being updated.

How diamagnetic levitation can be used to investigate raindrops and the behaviour of fruit flies will be among the subjects examined in the Joint Public Lecture of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Wales South West Network and the Institute of Physics in Wales next week.

Title: “Manipulating electrons in single atomic layers in graphene transistors and in fruit flies”

Speaker: Speaker: Laurence Eaves (Research Professor, School of Physics and Astronomy in the University of Nottingham)

Date: Thursday 9 May 2013

Time:  7pm

Venue: Faraday Lecture Theatre A, Swansea University

Admission: Free - all welcome

Summary: In this talk, Professor Eaves will describe two novel ways of manipulating electrons. Electrons not only hold together the solid and liquid matter in the world around us, but almost all of our modern technology relies on the properties of electrons. 

Firstly he will describe recent work with colleagues at the University of Manchester which results in electrons undergoing quantum tunnelling - the quantum mechanical phenomenon where a particle tunnels through a barrier that is normally impenetrable.

In the second part of the talk, the physics of diamagnetic levitation will be outlined, which is when levitation occurs by bringing diamagnetic material close to material that produces a magnetic field.

Professor Eaves will then show how diamagnetic levitation can be used to investigate a variety of physical and biological phenomena, including the properties of raindrops to the behaviour of fruit flies in enhanced and zero gravity conditions.