Arnab Banerjee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has received a Materials Research Society (MRS) Postdoctoral Award “for groundbreaking experiments providing evidence of topological excitations in a two-dimensional magnet, moving toward lossless qubits in quantum computing,” and Jie Xu, Stanford University, has received the award “for applying polymer physics concepts to realize integrated, intrinsically stretchable transistors for skin electronics.”
Banerjee received a BSc degree in physics from the Indian Institute of Technology and his PhD degree in physics from the University of Chicago. He led a team of researchers to make high-quality powder and single crystals of the graphene-like honeycomb insulator α-RuCl3. He then performed various experiments to reveal that the ground state of α-RuCl3 is close to a true quantum spin liquid ground state. He pioneered the field with experiments that resolved a controversy of stacking faults in these 2D materials.
Xu received a BS degree in chemistry and a PhD degree in polymer physics from Nanjing University. Her current work focuses primarily on developing new material chemistry concepts for next-generation stretchable electronics. She has been able to integrate a stretchable semiconductor into a stretchable integrated circuit. Xu also achieved roll-to-roll coating of a stretchable polymer semiconductor blend with a high degree of alignment of the polymer semiconductor nanostructure and enhanced charge-carrier mobility.
The MRS Postdoctoral Award recognizes scholars who show exceptional promise, which may include excellence in scientific research, leadership, advocacy, outreach, or teaching during their postdoc assignment. MRS acknowledges the Jiang Family Foundation and MTI Corporation for their generous support of this award.
