Elisabeth J. Nicol

Education

My B.Sc. degree was completed at Mount Allison University in 1985 and I was awarded the gold medal for the highest standing in honours science. During my undergraduate degree I worked in meteor and planetary science. I continued on to McMaster University where I earned my M.Sc. (1987) and Ph.D. (1991) in condensed matter theory supported by NSERC postgraduate scholarships. My research during this time was primarily on the topic of high temperature superconductivity, but I also pursued research in statistical physics and subatomic theory. My thesis was nominated by McMaster University for the NSERC doctoral prize. I remained at McMaster briefly as a postdoctoral fellow and then continued to further postdoctoral studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara under the auspices of a NSERC postdoctoral fellowship (1992-1994).

Professional Experience & Awards

While a graduate student at McMaster University, I had the unusual opportunity of being hired to be a Lecturer with full responsibility for a third year undergraduate level course in quantum physics in the department.  This experience coupled with my love for research encouraged me to choose a career in academia and upon completion of my postdoctoral studies in the United States, I decided to return to a faculty position in Canada. I joined the Department of Physics at the University of Guelph in 1994 as an Assistant Professor, with promotion to Associate Professor in 1999 and to Full Professor in 2004.  During this time I have received many honours including the John Charles Polanyi Prize in Physics (1994), the NSERC Women’s Faculty Award (1994-1999), and the Premier’s Research Excellence Award (2000).  I was also the first Canadian physicist to be made a Cottrell Scholar of Research Corporation, U.S.A. (1997) and I was inducted into the McMaster Alumni Gallery in 2003.  I was among the first few women physicists to be hired in Canadian universities and the first in the Guelph physics department.  In service to the community, I have been a member of the NSERC UFA selection committee and a reviewer for international journals, granting agencies and Cambridge University Press. I have also been the graduate coordinator for the Guelph side of the Guelph-Waterloo Physics Institute and in 2007, I was invited to give lectures at an International School on Superconductivity at the famous Cargese Institute. In the realm of education, I have been nominated for teaching awards a number of times and I have served as the Physics Columnist on CBC Radio’s “Quirks and Quarks” with Bob MacDonald as host. I am currently a member of the Canadian Association of Physicists, the American Physical Society, and the Brockhouse Institute of Materials Research at McMaster University, and I am an affiliate member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. I have 70 publications and have held more than $850K in grant funding.

Research Activities

My general area of research is theoretical condensed matter physics and quantum materials. I am currently working in the two areas of superconductivity and graphene-based materials. 

Superconductivity is a phenomenon occurring at very low temperatures approaching absolute zero (-273⁰C) where certain materials lose all resistance to the flow of electrical current and become perfect conductors. In recent times new classes of superconductors have been discovered at a phenomenal rate. A major breakthrough came in 1986 with the discovery of a new family of materials which superconduct at much higher temperatures than previously known. This mobilized unprecedented activity amongst scientists around the world due to the potential for applications and improvement in existing applications. Superconductors are used in a range of applications such as the high speed MAGLEV (Magnetic Levitation) train being implemented in Japan, superconducting cables for power transmission, industrial magnets, medical diagnosis with MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), etc.  In addition, they are being developed as microwave filters for the communication industry and investigated for possible use in quantum computing. My own work has centered around developing and testing theories for the various manifestations of superconductivity occurring in newer materials and seeking to understand the nature of this macroscopic quantum state of matter. One of our group highlights was to propose a new experimental probe for determining the symmetry of the “order parameter” (or “wavefunction”) in exotic superconductors, with an emphasis on finding the location of the zeroes of this quantity in space. This proposal has been implemented by several groups in the U.S.A., the U.K. and Japan and has been shown to be successful in many materials. Identifying this quantity is key to identifying the mechanism of the superconductivity which may lead to the discovery of new superconductors.

Graphene, a single sheet of carbon atoms, is a nanomaterial which shows highly unusual properties where the electrons act like they have no mass. Isolated for the first time in 2004, this unusual material can provide tests of fundamental laws of

physics in addition to potentially revolutionizing microelectronics. Graphene has the highest electron mobility seen in materials at room temperature and can handle contact heating effects better than other materials. It can be patterned directly into an electronic device, including the contacts. Indeed, single electron transistors have already been made from graphene and found to be much more stable than silicon-based ones.  In addition to fast electronics, graphene has unusual properties which facilitate its use in surface coatings and photovoltaics .  Graphene may some day replace the current materials used in LCD displays. My research in this area has been on the topic of calculating the optical properties of monolayer and bilayer graphene which is important both for technological applications and also for understanding the unusual quantum physics seen in this material.

List of Publications