Due to the current health situation and concerns surrounding the Corona virus, we are canceling the Katzenstein Lecture and Banquet scheduled for Friday, March 13, 2020.

Presented by the UConn Physics Department, the Katzenstein Distinguished Lecture series continues this spring. This year's program features Professor Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo, 2018 Nobel Prize winner in Physics for co-inventing chirped pulse amplification, a technique for creating high-intensity ultrashort optical pulses. More information about Professor Strickland can be found at https://physics.uconn.edu/2020/03/04/professor-donna-strickland-katzenstein-distinguished-lecturer-march-13-2020/

Charles Reynolds Distinguished Lecture

"Bose Condensation of Excitons in a Transition Metal Dichalcogenide"

Professor Peter Abbamonte
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL


Bose condensation has shaped our understanding of macroscopic quantum phenomena, having been realized in superconductors, atomic gases, and liquid helium. Excitons are bosons that have been predicted to condense into either a superfluid or an insulating electronic crystal. But definitive evidence for a thermodynamically stable exciton condensate has never been achieved. In this talk I will describe our use of momentum-resolved electron energy-loss spectroscopy (M-EELS) to demonstrate the existence of an exciton condensate in the transition metal dichalcogenide semimetal, 1T‐TiSe2. This phase of matter was predicted in the 1960's and nicknamed "excitonium" by Halperin and Rice, but not realized for certain until now. I will discuss the experimental signature of exciton condensation, a plasmon that disperses to zero energy at the transition temperature, and latest results on its stability against carrier doping and hydrostatic pressure.