Pegor Aynajian
Associate Professor
Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy
Background
Pegor Aynajian joined 91社区's Department of Physics as an Assistant Professor in the fall of 2013. He received his PhD in physics in 2009 from the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in conjunction with the University of Stuttgart, Germany. His PhD research was focused on the study of electron-phonon interaction in conventional and unconventional superconductors using neutron resonance spin-echo and triple-axis spectroscopy. In 2009, he became a MRSEC postdoctoral fellow in the Physics Department of Princeton University to pursue research on unconventional superconductivity and strongly correlated electron systems using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy.
Pegor Aynajian's research interests focus on the physics of strongly correlated electrons systems, where electronic properties hinge on the collective interplay between charge, spin, and orbital degrees of freedom. In many of these material systems, electronic correlations are tuned by chemical doping. In proximity to local dopants, various electronic phases and ordering phenomena compete at the nanoscale, resulting in a rich phase diagram with emerging quantum states of matter. Consequently, spatial electronic inhomogeneity becomes an intrinsic property of correlated electron systems, whose detailed understanding demands the use of local spectroscopic probes.
Aynajian's experimental approach is to bring together the power of local and bulk probes to visualize electrons and their correlations. At 91社区, they are building a variable-temperature, ultra-high-vacuum, scanning tunneling microscope (STM), which is a prevailing technique to locally access the electronic density of states of a material, its band structure, and collective charge (and spin) orders at the nanoscale. Complementary to the STM, they use neutron and x-ray spectroscopy, at dedicated research facilities around the world, to gain insight of the bulk electronic properties and their excitations.
Selected Publications
"Ubiquitous Interplay between Charge Ordering and High-Temperature Superconductivity in Cuprates" Eduardo H. da Silva Neto, Pegor Aynajian, Alex Frano, Riccardo Comin, Enrico Schierle, Eugen Weschke, Andr谩s Gyenis, Jinsheng Wen, John Schneeloch, Zhijun Xu, Shimpei Ono, Genda Gu, Mathieu Le Tacon, Ali Yazdani, Science 343, 393 (2014)
"Visualizing nodal heavy fermion superconductivity in CeCoIn5"
Brian B. Zhou, Shashank Misra, Eduardo H. da Silva Neto, Pegor Aynajian, Ryan E. Baumbach, J. D. Thompson, Eric D. Bauer, and Ali Yazdani, Nature Physics 9, 474 (2013)
"Visualizing heavy fermions emerging in a quantum critical Kondo lattice" Pegor Aynajian, Eduardo da Silva Neto, Andr谩s Gyenis, Ryan E. Baumbach, J. D. Thompson, Zachary Fisk, Eric D. Bauer, and Ali Yazdani, Nature 486, 201 (2012)
"Fluctuating stripes at the onset of the pseudogap in the high-Tc superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x" Colin V. Parker, Pegor Aynajian, Eduardo H. da Silva Neto, Aakash Pushp, Shimpei Ono, Jinsheng Wen, Zhijun Xu, Genda Gu, and Ali Yazdani,
Nature 468, 677 (2010)
"Visualizing the formation of the Kondo lattice and the hidden order in URu2Si2" Pegor Aynajian, Eduardo da Silva Neto, Colin V. Parker, Yingkai Huang, Abhay Pasupathy, John Mydosh, and Ali Yazdani, Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci USA 107, 10383 (2010)
"Energy gaps and Kohn anomalies in elemental superconductors"
Pegor Aynajian, T. Keller, L. Boeri, S. M. Shapiro, K. Habicht, B. Keimer, Science 319, 1509 (2008)
Education
- PhD, University of Stuttgart
Research Interests
- Emerging quantum phenomena in correlated and topological quantum materials
- Scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy
Awards
- NSF CAREER award (2017)
- Springer Series Recognizing Outstanding PhD Research (2011)