M. Zahid Hasan

M. Zahid Hasan is a prominent Bangladeshi-American experimental physicist renowned for his groundbreaking discoveries in quantum materials. He is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics at Princeton University and leads a research group investigating novel electronic properties in solids. His work has been pivotal in the experimental realization and exploration of topological quantum matter, including the first direct observation of Weyl fermions and Majorana fermions in crystalline materials.

Early life and education

Born in Bangladesh, he developed an early interest in the sciences before pursuing higher education in the United States. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin, earning a Bachelor of Science degree. For his doctoral research, he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked under the supervision of physicist Joseph Orenstein at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His thesis work involved pioneering spectroscopic studies of correlated electron systems, laying the foundation for his future investigations into exotic quantum states.

Career and research

Following his PhD, he conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University before joining the faculty at Princeton University in 2002. At Princeton, he established a leading laboratory focused on angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to probe the electronic structure of materials. His research program spans the synthesis of novel single crystals, advanced spectroscopic measurements, and theoretical collaborations to discover new phases of matter. He has held visiting positions at institutions like the Max Planck Institute and maintains active collaborations with scientists at MIT, the Weizmann Institute of Science, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Major discoveries and contributions

His most celebrated contributions are in the field of topological materials. His team provided the first experimental evidence for the existence of Dirac fermions in a three-dimensional topological insulator, specifically in the compound bismuth selenide. This was followed by the landmark discovery of the long-theorized Weyl fermion as a quasiparticle in tantalum arsenide, a finding published in the journal Science. Subsequently, his group reported the observation of Majorana fermions in a superconducting material, a discovery with significant implications for quantum computing. These works have opened new avenues in spintronics and the search for axion electrodynamics in solids.

Awards and honors

His research has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards in physics. He is a recipient of the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize, one of the highest honors in the field in the United States, awarded by the American Physical Society. He also won the New Horizons in Physics Prize, funded by the Milner Foundation. International recognition includes the Abdus Salam Medal and the TWAS Prize from The World Academy of Sciences. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and has been named a Moore Foundation Investigator.

Personal life

He maintains strong ties to his homeland of Bangladesh and is involved in efforts to advance scientific education and research capacity there. He has mentored numerous students and postdoctoral researchers from around the world who have gone on to positions at major universities and national laboratories. Outside of his scientific pursuits, he is known to be an advocate for international scientific collaboration and the global exchange of ideas.

Category:Bangladeshi physicists Category:Princeton University faculty Category:Condensed matter physicists