Nitin Samarth

Verne M. Willaman Professor of Physics & Professor of Materials Science/Engineering
Photo of Nitin Samarth

Mailing Address:

104 Davey Lab, 251 Pollock Rd., Box #99, University Park. Pa 16802

Education

  • M.S. (5yr Integrated) IIT Bombay (1980)
  • Ph.D. Purdue University (1986)

Honors and Awards

  • Chair, APS Global Summit (March Meeting), American Physical Society (2026)
  • Chair-elect, APS Global Summit (March Meeting), American Physical Society (2025)
  • David Adler Lectureship Award, American Physical Society (2024)
  • Verne M. Willaman Professor of Physics, Penn State University (2023 - present).
  • Vice-chair, APS March Meeting, American Physical Society (2023)
  • George A. and Margaret M. Downsbrough Department Head of Physics, Penn State (2011-2023).
  • Past-Chair, Division of Materials Physics, American Physical Society (2020)
  • Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (2019)
  • Chair, Division of Materials Physics, American Physical Society (2019)
  • Chair-elect, Division of Materials Physics, American Physical Society (2018)
  • Vice-chair, Division of Materials Physics, American Physical Society (2017)
  • Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2013).
  • Outstanding Alumnus Award, Physics Dept., Purdue University (2008).
  • Faculty Scholar Medal in the Physical Sciences, Penn State (2008).
  • George W. Atherton Award for Teaching Excellence, Penn State (2007).
  • Fellow of the American Physical Society (2003).
  • Society of Physics Students Annual Award for Excellence in Physics Teaching, Penn State (1993).

Research Interests

Research Interests

Synthesis of magnetic, semiconductor, superconductor and topological insulator nanostructures.

Quantum spintronics and coherent spin dynamics in mesoscopic and nanoscale geometries.

Searching for exotic broken symmetry surface states.

Solid state platforms for quantum information processing.

Collective spin phenomena in artificial frustrated magnets.

 

Current projects

  • National Science Foundation: "Exploring Emergent Phenomena at the Interface of Topological Semimetals, Magnetism, and Superconductivity."
  • National Science Foundation: "MRSEC: Center for Nanoscale Science."
  • National Science Foundation: "MIP: 2D Crystal Consortium."
  • Department of Energy/University of Chicago/Argonne National Lab: "Next Generation Quantum Science & Engineering: Q-NEXT"
  • National Science Foundation: "FuSe2 Topic 3: High-performance & Energy-efficient In-memory Computing Devices with Co-designed 2D Ferroelectric Materials and Stacks"

Research group

 

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Rainbow Science Network logo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Samarth Group is committed to providing a welcoming, safe, and inclusive environment for all our students and scientists. 

Research Professors: Anthony Richardella, Saurav Islam

Graduate Students: Jyotirmay Dwivedi, Arthur Enriquez, K. A. Nivedith, Sandra Santosh, Emma Steinebronn.

Undergraduate students: Aaron McDonnell,  Lucas Schrauf, Jacob Newton, James Yu

Alumni

Graduate students:  Ioulia Smorchkova, Ph.D. '97 [Northrup Grumman, Los Angeles]; Frank Flack, Ph.D. '98 [Univ. Wisconsin, Madison]; Oindrilla Ray, Ph.D. '00 [VueFolio, San Jose]; Robert Knobel, Ph.D. '00 [Queens University, Canada]; Joseph Berry, Ph.D. '01 [NREL, Golden, CO]; Keh-chiang Ku, Ph.D. '04 [Marvell Semiconductor]; Weihua Wang, Ph.D.'05 [Academica Sinica, Taiwan]; Gang Xiang, Ph.D. '06 [Schichuan Univ., China]; Xia Li, Ph.D. '07 [Apple, Cupertino]; Meng Zhu, Ph.D. '08 [Global Foundries, Albany]; William Fadgen, Ph.D. '08 [Thermo Fisher Scientific]; Benjamin Cooley, Ph.D. '10 [Univ. Georgia]; Andrew Balk, Ph.D. '11 [SciTon, Palo Alto CA]; Jing Liang, Ph.D. '12; Duming Zhang, Ph.D. '12 [Meta, Sunnyvale CA]; David Rench, Ph.D. '13 [EY Parthenon]; Joon Sue Lee, Ph.D. '14 [Univ. Tenessee]; Abhinav Kandala, Ph.D. '15 [IBM Yorktown Heights]; Robert Fraleigh, Ph.D. '16 [Applied Research Lab, Penn State]; Yu Pan, Ph.D. '17 [Lam Research]; James Kally Ph.D. '17 [Intel], Eric Kamp, Ph.D '18 [Cree Inc.], Susan Kempinger Ph.D. '19 [North Central College], Di Xiao Ph.D. '19 [HiSilicon, Shanghai, China], Timothy Pillsbury, Ph.D.'21 [Northrup Grumman], Run Xiao, Ph.D. '22 [KLA], Yanan Li, Ph.D. '23 [Weizmann Institute], Jeff Rable, Ph.D. '23, Fan Zhang, Ph.D. '23 [CGG], Wilson Yanez, Ph.D. '23 [Univ. California-Santa Barbara] , Yu-Sheng Huang, Ph.D. '23 [TSMC, Taiwan], Max Stanley, Ph.D. '24 [Raytheon]

Postdocs: Seung-hyun Cheung [Sejong University, Korea]; Oleg Maksimov [ACHS]; Khalid Eid [Miami University, Ohio]; Joon Sue Lee [University of Tennessee]; Partha Mitra [IISER Kolkatta, India]; Kriti Kohli [Global Foundries]; Gang Xiang [Schizuan University, China]; Hailong Wang [Georgia Tech, Georgia], Arpita Mitra [Brookhaven National Lab], Yongxi Ou [Nanjing University]. 

Undergraduate students: William Morrissette [BS'25], Baird Bankovic [BS'24, Cornell Univ.],  John Morris [BS '22, Univ. Nebraska], Marquis McMillan [BS '21, Univ. Chicago], Ben Piazza [BS '20, Northeastern Univ.], Grant Smith [BS '17, Univ, Chicago]Jacob Wisser [BS/MS '16, Ph.D. Stanford], Derek Sincavage [BS '16, Minnesota], Jacob Repicky [BS '15, Ph.D. Ohio State], David Hopper [BS '14, Ph. D. UPenn], Terence Bretz-Sullivan [BS'10, Ph.D. Minnesota], Jeremy Cardellino [BS'10, Ph.D. Ohio State], Tina Lin [BS '07, Ph.D. Harvard], David Lehr [BS '05],  David Issadore [BS'04, Ph.D. Harvard], Martin Olson [BS '99], Theodore Kisner [BS '98, Ph.D. UCSB], Lara Mangravite [BS '97, Ph.D. UCSF], Eylon Geva [BS '96],  Heather Hennessey [BS '95], Allen Hunt [BS '95, Ph.D. MIT]

 

Selected Publications - Full list of publications on Google Scholar

Nitin's Publications