TeachingInstruction
Teaching Across the Physics Curriculum
Dr. Duncan has taught a wide range of classes throughout his career, from introductory courses for undergraduates to advanced graduate-level topics.
He has taught throughout the physics curriculum, including the introductory sequence of university physics, introduction to special relativity and to quantum physics, graduate condensed matter physics, graduate electromagnetism, interdisciplinary courses in self-organized criticality and in biological physics, and senior laboratory. He led the development of a new core curriculum course called “Chemistry and Physics at the Nanometer-scale,” which he first taught during the Fall 2006 semester as part of a new Nanoscience and Microsystems graduate degree program.
He has advised and co-advised many post-docs, graduate students, and undergraduate students at the University of New Mexico, Caltech, and Texas Tech University. Many of his former students now hold permanent positions in academia, industry, and the national laboratories within the United States.
In Fall 2022, Dr. Duncan taught a new graduate-level special topics course on Nanoscience and Quantum Sensing (PHYS 5300-019). The course was quite successful and became a regular graduate offering each fall semester starting in Fall 2023.
Nanoscience & Quantum Sensing
A graduate-level course introducing methods of advanced materials properties measurement and nanomaterials design. The course discusses the principles of physics and chemistry at the nanometer scale, and the nature of macroscopic quantum coherence in materials such as superconductors, superfluids, quantum dot arrays, and Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC). Students study several subtopics in detail:
- Properties of materials, and engineering principles, as a function of size
- Multi-scale imaging, AI detection of emergent phenomena, and quantum dot arrays
- Magnetic properties of materials, nanomagnets, and spintronics
- Fabrication and characterization of nanomaterials
- Nuclear nanotechnology, fission/fusion fragment nanoparticles, and applications
- Quantum coherence, superconductivity, superfluidity, BEC
- Quantum dot design principles for quantum sensors
In the lab, students learn to operate the Quantum Design DynaCool Physical Property Measurement System (PPMS), various electron microscopes, and the Zeiss Crossbeam 540 focused ion beam (FIB) system to fabricate quantum dot arrays and study emergent structures at the nanometer level. Students prepare a term paper in one of the topical areas studied, based on their class notes, publications, and lab results.