Timothy Berkelbach is one of 43 scientists and engineers nationwide selected for an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award. This competitive honor supports early career scientists in their pursuit of creative basic research. Berkelbach’s project, “Exciton Interactions in Semiconductor Nanostructures,” will develop first-principles computational techniques and open-source software to simulate the complex electronic and optical properties of nanoscale semiconductors. These materials exhibit strong Coulomb interactions leading to tightly-bound electron-hole pairs as well as more exotic many-body complexes. Such many-body complexes are spectroscopically dark and can only be created and probed by very intense lasers. Berkelbach's project will develop the tools needed to simulate this nonlinear optical response in order to identify new materials with applications in photovoltaics, sensing, and communication.
Timothy Berkelbach Selected for Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigators Award