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SOLVAY WORKSHOP
"From physics of graphene to graphene for physics"


Brussels, September 6 - 8, 2017 (ULB - Campus Plaine - Solvay Room)


Many interesting properties of graphene put this material at the foreground of present day nanosciences. Graphene is mechanically hard, extremely flexible, chemically inert, impermeable to any atom and molecule, optically transparent. It is a zero-gap semiconductor easily made conducting by electrostatic charging, the charge carriers having then a remarkable mobility. The electronic structure of graphene near the Fermi level is remarkable: electrons and holes have a linear energy dispersion versus momentum, much like ultra-relativistic particles in free space. However, they move in a 2D periodic potential with a velocity 300 times smaller than the speed of light. Most of the remarkable properties of graphene come from its band-structure peculiarity: fractional quantum Hall effect, quantum localization, Klein paradox, small optical absorption, high carrier mobility ... . Graphene is also an interesting laboratory for the illustration and sometimes verification of predictions of quantum electrodynamics. The Klein paradox, which states that relativistic particles can tunnel across large distances through a barrier potential with 100 percent probability, is one of them. Potential barriers are easily created in graphene by application of an external field making possible the study of Klein paradox. Another, still puzzling effect is the atomic collapse predicted by quantum electrodynamics for high-Z atom. The simplest theory predicts a critical Z for atom stability being the reciprocal of the fine structure constant, about 137. In graphene, the critical Z of a charged defect should be of the order of one, because the fine-structure constant is 300 larger than in conventional electrodynamics. The workshop will be the occasion to review the many interesting and exotic electronic and optical properties of graphene, and to draw a comprehensive picture of the physics that can be learned from graphene, thanks to its analogy with Dirac-Weyl relativistic fermions.

 

Speakers

Eva Y. Andrei (Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA)

Carlo W.J. Beenakker (Univ. Leiden, The Netherlands)

Klaus Ensslin (ETH, Zurich, Switzerland)

Andrea Ferrari (Univ. Cambridge, UK)

Albert Fert (CNRS/Thales joint laboratory, France)

Pawel Hawrylak (uOttawa, Canada)

Frank Koppens (ICFO, Barcelona, Spain)

Leonid Levitov (MIT, Massachusetts, USA)

Vincent Meunier (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,Troy, USA)

Kostya Novoselov (Univ. Manchester, UK)


Tomas Palacios (MIT, Massachusetts, USA)

Nuno M.R. Peres (Univ. Minho, Portugal)

Stephan Roche (ICN2, Barcelona, Spain)

Pierre Seneor (Université Paris-Sud, France)

Jurgen Smet (Max Planck Institute Stuttgart, Germany)

Christoph Stampfer (RWTH Aachen, Germany)

Sergio Valenzuela (ICN2, Barcelona, Spain)

Nathalie Vermeulen (VUB, Brussels, Belgium)

Klaus von Klitzing (Max Planck Institute Stuttgart, Germany)

Oleg Yazyev (EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland)

Scientific & Organising Committee

Philippe Lambin (UNamur, Belgium)

Jean-Christophe Charlier (UCL, Belgium)

François Peeters (UAntwerpen, Belgium)

Pascal Kockaert (ULB, Brussels, Belgium)

Gregory Van Lier (VUB, Brussels, Belgium)

Practical information for attendees

Fee and registration

Attendance is free of charge but registration is required (limited space).
August 1, 2017 is the deadline for registration.

 

Name badges and WIFI codes will be distributed on site on Wednesday 6 September from 9:15 a.m.

Poster session

A poster session will be organized on Wednesday 6 September

Poster presentation from attendees is strongly encouraged.
A title and a short abstract (maximum 500 words including references) of the proposed contribution
should be sent in a Word document format using the template below to Isabelle Van Geet by
email at isabelle.vangeet@solvayinstitutes.be, before 15 August 2017.


Word template: abstract.doc


Size of poster board: 114cm x114cm (suitable for A0 and A1 portrait poster)

Location

The workshop will be held at ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles) - Campus Plaine - Bld de la Plaine - 1050 Brussels
(Building N.O. - 5th Floor - Solvay Room). Click HERE for the map of the Campus.

Banquet

A banquet will be held on Thursday 7 September at 8:00 p.m.
For those who wish to attend, there will be a 50 Euro banquet fee to be paid cash on the first day of the workshop.

Please send an email to Isabelle Van Geet (isabelle.vangeet@solvayinstitutes.be) if you wish to attend.

Getting here

Metro line 5 (direction "Hermann Debroux") - Station "Delta". Delta is the metro station on the campus.
Click HERE for the map of the metro.

For more information about public transport in Brussels go to the STIB's website.

If you come by car, please click HERE for directions.

Travel and accommodation

Attendees will have to arrange and pay for their own travel, accommodation, and subsistence costs.

Please see below links that might help you find accommodation in Brussels:

Hôtel Astrid - Hôtel Atlas - Sleep Well - Bed & Brussels - Visit Brussels - Booking.com

 

 

***For any enquiries, please contact Isabelle Van Geet (isabelle.vangeet@solvayinstitutes.be)