Presidential Faculty Fellows/Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PFF/PECASE)

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w:\awards\awards96\num.doc 9629180 Marcus This experimental project will advance the fundamental understanding of the mesoscopic scale behavior of matter, and particularly the appearance of quantum-mechanical chaotic behavior. The experimental research entails fabrication of semiconductor microstructures, in the form of wires and dots, and the measurement of their electronic properties at millikelvin temperatures. Universal statistics of conductance fluctuations are connected to quantum manifestations of chaos. The educational components of the project involve finding successful ways to use advanced textbooks in the teaching of freshman physics, and the integration of undergraduate students in laboratory research. %%% The research carried out searches for understanding of changes in the performance of semiconductor microelectronic devices that eventually will result from making the devices ever smaller. Smaller devices are desirable in improving the speed and complexity of computer chips such as the Pentium chip, but it is expected further advances in the speed and complexity of computer chips will eventually be limited by the onset of different physical rules for electron behavior. The present research will contribute to our understanding of this transition in behavior. The work may also suggest new device designs which may be superior in the desirable limit of extremely small device size and high device density. The educational components of the project relate to novel methods in teaching elementary college physics and in giving undergraduate science students an earlier exposure to laboratory research. ***