Faculty

NUH GEDIK
Assistant Professor of Physics

NUH GEDIK, Assistant Professor of Physics

Name: Nuh Gedik

Title(s): Assistant Professor of Physics

Email: gedik@mit.edu

Phone: (617) 253-3420

Assistant: Monica Wolf (617) 253-4829

Address:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Bldg. 13-2114
Cambridge, MA 02139

Related Links:

Area of Physics:

Condensed Matter Experiment

Research Interests

Professor Gedik's research centers on developing and using advanced optical techniques for investigating ultrafast processes in solids, nanostructures and interfacial molecular assemblies. Typical timescale for these events are femtoseconds (billionth of a millionth of a second), and typical length scales are angstroms (tenth of a billionth of a meter). In order to resolve these fast processes, ultrafast laser pulses with femtosecond durations are used. To achieve spatial sensitivity in the angstrom scale, Gedik group generates ultrashort electron packets from ultrafast laser pulses via photoelectric effect. After being accelerated to high energies, diffraction of these electron packets is used to record atomic scale "movies" with femtosecond time resolution and angstrom scale spatial resolution.

Gedik group uses these techniques to search for answers to important problems in condensed matter physics. One primary focus is to understand strongly correlated electron systems. In these materials, the interplay between spin, charge and lattice excitations leads to fascinating properties such as high temperature superconductivity and colossal magneto-resistance. Using the aforementioned experimental techniques, spatiotemporal dynamics of these excitations are studied with the goal of identifying the mechanisms behind the striking macroscopic behavior of these materials.

Biographical Sketch

Professor Gedik joined MIT Physics Department as an assistant professor in January 2008. He received his B.S. in Physics in 1998 from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey and his Ph.D in Physics in 2004 from University of California, Berkeley. After his Ph.D, he moved to Caltech where worked as a postdoctoral scholar till January 2008.

Selected Publications

  • "Non-equilibrium phase transitions in cuprates observed by ultrafast electron crystallography," N. Gedik, Ding-Shyue Yang, Gennady Logvenov, Ivan Bozovic, and Ahmed H. Zewail Science 316, 425 (2007).
  • "Observation of spin Coulomb drag in a two-dimensional electron gas," C. P. Weber, N. Gedik, J. E. Moore, J. Orenstein, J. Stephens, and D. D. Awschalom, Nature 437, 1330-1333 (2005).
  • "Abrupt transition in quasiparticle dynamics at optimal doping in a cuprate superconductor system," N. Gedik, J. Orenstein, S. Ono, Yasushi Obe, and Yoichi Ando, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 117005 (2005).
  • "Diffusion of nonequilibrium quasi-particles in a cuprate superconductor," N. Gedik, J. Orenstein, Ruixing, Liang, D.A. Bonn, and W.N. Hardy, Science 300, 1410 (2003).