About

David Abergel got his Ph.D from Lancaster University in the UK, then did two postdocs, first at the University of Manitoba (Canada), and then the University of Maryland (USA).

David's research is in condensed matter physics, and is centered on the theory of electronic properties of Dirac materials. These materials are crystalline solids which exhibit a linear dispersion relation for quasiparticles near the Fermi surface and a chirality which locks the momentum to a spin (or pseudospin) degree of freedom. This leads to a rich landscape of exciting fundamental physics, but also to many potential applications in devices.

Recently, David has also been working on the properties of heterostructures of 2D materials, and the exciting phenomenon of exciton condensation. Heterostructures are devices where two or more different types of material form an interface with each other. These interfaces can often give interesting and useful physical effects. For instance, David has recently shown that if the materials on either side of an interface have a different sign for the Dirac mass, then topologically protected states will exist at the boundary. Depending on the details of the particular materials, these interface modes may carry spin or pseudospin currents. David has also worked on understanding the inter-layer interaction between 2D materials that are stacked on top of each other.

Excitons are a pair of an electron and hole, and are bosons. Under the right conditions, these bosons can form a superfluid condensate which can transport charge without energy loss, and which may have application in switching devices, thermal transport, and sensing. Recently, David has been working to demonstrate that this condensate may exist in 1D systems (in apparent violation of the Mermin-Wagner theorem) if the electrons and holes are linked by a small single particle tunneling.