Department of Physics

Image of a book and notebook laid out on a table in front of a bookcase.

Kent State University has recently received a flurry of grants totaling more than $3 million in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which will support research and innovation in a wide range of fields within the College of Arts and Sciences. 

A gold–gold collision recorded by the Heavy Flavor Tracker (HFT) component of the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). (Image courtesy of STAR Collaboration)

Congratulations are in order for Sooraj Radhakrishnan, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the Kent State University College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Physics who performs research in experimental nuclear physics. His data analysis of some rare particles called “charm quarks” that may have existed in the first microsecond of the Big Bang, the emerging point of our universe, was highlighted in a recent issue of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Science Bulletin.

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Jonathan V. Selinger, professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar in Kent State University’s Department of Physics, in the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science.

Kent State University sign

Jonathan V. Selinger, professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar in Kent State University’s Department of Physics, in the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science.

car glass

Yingfei Jiang, a College of Arts and Science graduate student in the Chemical Physics program and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University, and his advisor Deng-Ke Yang, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Physics, have invented the first ever dual-mode smart glass technology that can control both radiant energy flow (heat) and privacy through a tinted material.

Inner vertex components of the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (righthand view) allow scientists to trace tracks from triplets of decay particles picked up in the detector's outer regions (left) to their origin

Nuclear physics researchers at Kent State University and all over the world have been searching for violations of the fundamental symmetries in the universe for decades. Much like the “Big Bang” (approximately 13.8 billion years ago), but on a tiny scale, they briefly recreate the particle interactions that likely existed microseconds into the formation of our universe which also likely now exist in the cores of neutron stars.

Students studying in a classroom

The “C” in “college” might as well stand for “cramming.”
Studies show students are notoriously bad at adopting and adhering consistently to high-impact study habits that help them retain knowledge long-term.
Researchers and faculty at Kent State University, however, are collaborating on a new project to put a modern technological twist on a tried-and-true study tactic.