Physics

This course is aimed at 1st and 2nd year medical students and is part of the liberal arts education and preparatory education for medical school, training logical thinking skills and conveying the appeal of natural sciences. In terms of research, we are conducting experimental research on quantum condensed matter physics.
The inherent properties of a substance cannot be observed at room temperature due to large thermal fluctuations. When a substance is cooled to a sufficiently low temperature, the substance's "individuality" becomes apparent, as typified by superconductivity and superfluidity. In this course, we cool substances to ultra-low temperatures of several K to the mK (millikelvin) range and apply a strong magnetic field of several T to realize a complex extreme environment, and elucidate the essential properties of the substance using physical techniques such as quantum transport phenomenon measurement and magnetic resonance. Specifically, we measure physical properties such as electrical conduction, electron spin, and nuclear spin resonance in simple systems such as two-dimensional electron systems formed at the junction interface of semiconductors such as GaAs and InSb, and single-layer and double-layer graphene, in order to elucidate the essence of the substance. In particular, the above-mentioned ultra-low temperature technology is not limited to basic uses such as cryopreservation of biological tissues, but is also an essential technology for the advancement of medical technology, as typified by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetoencephalography in the field of medical engineering.

The specific research topics are as follows:

Project 2 is a collaborative research project with the Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research (Osaka University), Osaka Institute of Technology, National Institute for Materials Science, and the Research Institute for Electronic Science (Hokkaido University); project 3 with the Institute for Solid State Physics (University of Tokyo) and Graduate School of Science (Kyoto University); project 4 with the Graduate School of Science (Tohoku University) and the University of Oklahoma (USA); and project 5 with the Far-Infrared Region Development Research Center (University of Fukui), Graduate School of Science (Kyoto University), KAIST (Korea), and University of Turku (Finland).