Texas Tech University

Center for Emerging Energy Sciences

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Instruction

Dr Duncan has taught a plethora of classes throughout his career ranging from introductory courses for undergraduates to complex topics for graduate-level courses.

Dr Duncan has taught throughout the physics curriculum, including the introductory sequence of university physics, introduction to special relativity and to quantum physics, graduate condensed matter physics, graduate electromagnetism, interdisciplinary courses in self-organized criticality and in biological physics, and senior laboratory. He led the development of a new core curriculum course called “Chemistry and Physics at the Nanometer-scale”, which he first taught during the Fall Semester, 2006 as part of our new Nanoscience and Microsystems graduate degree program. He has advised and co-advised many post-docs, graduate students, and undergraduate students at the University of New Mexico, Caltech, and Texas Tech University.  Many of his former students now hold permanent positions in academia, industry, and in the national laboratories within the United States

In the Fall of 2022 semester, Dr Duncan taught a new graduate-level course on Nanoscience and Quantum Sensing.  This special topics course (5300-019) was quite successful, and that it will be made a regular graduate course offering each Fall semester in the future, starting in the Fall, 2023 term.

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PHYS 5300.19   FALL 2023

A graduate-level course on Nanoscience and Quantum Sensing.

We will introduce methods of advanced materials properties measurement, and nanomaterials design, within this course.  We will also discuss the principles of physics and chemistry at the nanometer scale, and the nature of macroscopic quantum coherence in materials, such as superconductors, superfluids, quantum dot arrays, and in Bose-Einstein Condensates (BEC). Students will be asked to prepare a term paper in one of the topical areas studied, based upon their class notes, publications, and lab results that they obtain in this class.

In the lab, students will learn to operate the Quantum Design ‘DynaCool' Physical Properties Measurement System (PPMS), and various electron microscopes, and the Zeiss 540 Crossbeam Focused Ion Beam (FIB) system to fabricate quantum dot arrays, and to study emergent structures at the nanometer level.  We will also conduct laboratory demonstrations and various other techniques that will be useful for the students to understand as they are introduced to this new field of research.  

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PHYS 1408.01   SPRING 2023

An undergraduate-level course on introductory physics.

The course will cover kinematics, statics, dynamics, rotational kinematics and rotational dynamics, fluids, gravity, and oscillations.  This course emphasizes Newton's Laws and their applications.  Most of the course materials, including homework assignments, can be found on the course LMS.

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PHYS 5300.19   FALL 2022

A graduate-level course on Nanoscience and Quantum Sensing.

We will introduce methods of advanced materials properties measurement, and nanomaterials design, within this course.  We will also discuss the principles of physics and chemistry at the nanometer scale, and the nature of macroscopic quantum coherence in materials, such as superconductors, superfluids, quantum dot arrays, and in Bose-Einstein Condensates (BEC). Students will be asked to prepare a term paper in one of the topical areas studied, based upon their class notes, publications, and lab results that they obtain in this class.

In the lab, students will learn to operate the Quantum Design ‘DynaCool' Physical Properties Measurement System (PPMS), and various electron microscopes, and the Zeiss 540 Crossbeam Focused Ion Beam (FIB) system to fabricate quantum dot arrays, and to study emergent structures at the nanometer level.  We will also conduct laboratory demonstrations and various other techniques that will be useful for the students to understand as they are introduced to this new field of research.  


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