Structure and Dynamics Group

SanD congratulates Ana Clarissa Torio for presenting the best Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science poster at the 42nd Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas Physics Conference at the Batangas State University last 3-6 July 2024. Along with SanD physicist Gennevieve Macam, they presented their theoretical study of the electro-optical properties of halide-doped perovskites that may find applications in renewable harvesting technologies.

SanD researchers presented a total of 13 articles and two abstracts at SPP2024, which was attended by participants from 12 countries. It was highlighted by 36 invited talks by speakers from top research institutions from around the world and a keynote presentation by Daniel Holz of the University of Chicago on what the study of gravitational waves reveals about stellar formation and galactic composition.

The call for undergraduate student apprentices has closed for 2024. However, interested graduate students may still submit their applications here: Link to Application Form.

SanD welcomes its newest faculty member Noel Lamsen. He joins us as an Associate Professor of the National Institute of Physics. He obtained his PhD in Statistical Physics at SISSA (International School for Advanced Studies) in Trieste, where he also obtained a research fellowship from November 2020 to February 2021. Dr. Lamsen's current work focuses on the theory of critical phenomena in low-dimensional systems by employing novel methods to obtain exact results. He is also interested in topics related but not limited to disordered systems, percolation and polymers, geometric phase transitions, path integral and second quantization methods for classical stochastic reaction-diffusion processes, density matrix renormalization group, matrix product states and tensor networks, and Monte Carlo simulations.

NIP graduate students who are interested to work with Dr. Lamsen on these topics may contact him by email.

The Asian Network School and Workshop on Complex Condensed Matter Systems 2023 was held on 6-10 November 2023 at the Institute of Physics, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology in Hanoi, Vietnam. This year, the Philippine node of the ICTP Asian Network was headed by SanD faculty Cristine Villagonzalo. Joining her were SanD faculty member Gennevieve Macam and PhD student Jerome Acosta. Other Filipino scientists and students from Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology, University of the Philippines Diliman, and University of Santo Tomas also attended the event. The lectures and talks covered a variety of topics including flat bands, entanglement, and density functional theory. The next ICTP Asian Network activity will be held in Thailand in 2024.

The Structure and Dynamics Research Program welcomes our newest faculty member, Dr. Gennevieve Macam. She is currently an associate professor at the National Institute of Physics, University of the Philippines Diliman. Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan where she also obtained her PhD in Physics. Dr. Macam works on computational materials physics research primarily using first-principles density functional theory for materials research and discovery. Her main interests are in 2D materials, topological materials, Dirac semi-metals, graphene quantum dots, kagome magnets, and multiferroic materials. She has published her work in high-impact factor journals such as Science Advances, Nature Communications, and Physical Review Letters.

Dr. Macam is now accepting applications from current NIP graduate students to join her research subgroup.

SanD graduate students Cleofe Ayang-ang and Robertson Esperanza attended the Asian Quantum Information Science Conference 2019 (AQIS) last 19-23 August 2019 at the Korean Institute of Advanced Study (KIAS) in Seoul. Clei presented her research on the critical features of the Schmidt gap in a long-ranged Kitaev spin chain and Robbie's presentation was on ground state entanglement in an extended Hubbard model. The week long conference included talks on quantum communication, coherence, multi-level quantum teleportation, magic state manipulation, and tutorials on embezzlement of entanglement and qauntum machine learning. Clei was awarded one of the 3rd prizes for best student poster during the conference closing ceremony.

Mary Chris Go (BS Applied Physics) participated in the 6-week 2019 MOST GASE Summer Program on Quantum Technology + Artificial Intelligence organized by the Taiwanese Ministry of Science and Technology Center for Global Affairs and Science Engagement in Taipei this summer. She had her internship at the AIMIA (AI for Medical Image Analysis) Laboratory at the National Taiwan University (NTU). Her work focused on detecting polyps in medical images using YOLOv3 and she was recognized with an Outstanding Performance Award for Best Research. MC also won a GASE Popular Award for the video blog she made about her research life in NTU.

The 2018 ICTP Asian Network School and Workshop on Complex Condensed Matter Systems was hosted by the Suranaree University of Technology last 5-9 November 2018 in Thailand. The Philippines is a participating country of this ICTP Network and scientists and students from Mapúa University, MSU-IIT, UP Diliman, UP Los Baños, and USC attended the event. Lectures and talks covered a variety of topics on complex condensed matter systems that include quantum entanglement, quantum information and many-body interactions, density functional theory, and the applications of synchrotron light. Participants toured the nearby ancient Khmer ruins and the Phimai National Museum. SanD coordinator Cristine Villagonzalo heads the Philippine node of the network and the next 2019 School and Workshop will take place at the National Institute of Physics, UP Diliman.

Former SanD student Paul Ang participated in the Second Training Workshop on Regional Climate Modeling for Southeast Asia at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi last 22-26 October 2018. Organized by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) and the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment in South-East Asia (CORDEX-SEA), the workshop included training sessions for the RegCM4 regional climate model and lectures on the latest progress of CORDEX-SEA. Paul and his groupmates' presentation that matched land use models with observed data was cited as the best presentation of the workshop.

SanD researchers presented 23 papers at the 36th Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas Physics Conference in Puerto Princesa City last 6 to 9 June 2018. This international conference was one of the largest organized by SPP with 369 participants coming from 11 countries. The sessions were highlighted by talks on frontier topics by 30 invited speakers coming from strong academic and research institutions, several of whom have ties with SanD members. The online Proceedings of the SPP published 214 open-access articles and another 50 extended abstracts were presented as posters. SanD physicists Francis Paraan and Cristine Villagonzalo played crucial organizational roles in the conference and SanD alumni Marienette Vega and Rona Barbarona actively participated as SPP Councilors.

The poster presentation of Daniel Marquez  was recognized as the best technical poster at the recently concluded DOST-SEI ASTHRDP Graduate Scholars' Conference held last 18-19 June 2018. His presentation on the magnetic interaction in a two-dimensional electron gas is part of his MS thesis work supervised by Cristine Villagonzalo. Five other MS Physics students from SanD also presented their research in this annual conference: Jan Viloria (molecular dynamics simulations of alloys), Raymart Canoy (quenched Kitaev chains), Amancio Manceras (Penna model and genetic diversity), Mykhal Mangada (tensor network image classifiers), and Jammy Guinid (Penna model with mutations). In line with this year's theme of Big Data for Big Science, talks were given on the applications of data science in industry, agriculture, medicine, climate change, and other fields.

The ICTP Asian Network on Condensed Matter and Complex Systems links scientists of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste and several research groups in Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines. The network node in the Philippines is coordinated by SanD faculty Cristine Villagonzalo and involves physicists from MSU-IIT, UP Diliman, and UP Los Baños. SanD members were actively involved in three network activities this year and look forward to further participation in the following years.