Seminar Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Time: 11:00 AM PT
Location: 67-3111 & Zoom
Talk Title: Watching Quasiparticles by Electron Microscopy
Zoom link
Add this event to your calendar
Abstract:
Quasiparticles that arise from the collective behavior of electrons, spins, and lattices play a
central role in modern condensed matter physics. They not only deepen our understanding of
strongly correlated systems but also provide building blocks for future technologies such as
quantum sensors and low-power electronics. In this talk, I will describe how my group at ASU is
developing new electron microscopy and spectroscopy tools to directly image and probe two
such quasiparticles called excitons and ferrons. Excitons are electron-hole pairs bound by
Coulomb forces where as ferrons are collective dynamic polarization fluctuations. We show how
picoscale strain, dopants and structural variations influence exciton localization, and how
tailored diffraction and spectroscopy methods can reveal ferron types across different
polarization textures. Looking ahead, I will discuss opportunities to manipulate local
environments to tune quasiparticles in real time. Together, these advances provide both a new
experimental perspective on emergent quantum matter and pathways toward practical quantum
and electronic devices.
Bio:
Sandhya Susarla is an assistant professor at School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy. Prior to this, she was a postdoctoral researcher at National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). She obtained her doctorate in 2019 from Materials Science and Nanoengineering Department at Rice University. She also worked briefly in Orsay STEM group as a Chateaubriand Fellow.
Her primary research interests lie in using analytical electron microscopy and spectroscopy tools to understand electronic co-relations in quantum materials. She has hands-on experience working on NION and FEI microscopes and side entry stage cryo-holders during PhD, internship and postdoc. In addition to electron microscopy, she also has extensive experience in growth of 2D materials. Her research work has resulted in 35+ publications and 700+ citations in reputed journals like Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, ACS Nano, Nano Letters, Chemistry of Materials, 2D Materials, Science Advances, Physical Review Materials and Physical Review Letters. She also received recognition as outstanding postdoctoral scholar from American Physical Society and Microscopy and Microanalysis.
