Jason Kawasaki, an associate professor in materials science and engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been named a 2025 Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Experimental Physics Investigator.
Selection to the program is a prestigious honor and includes 22 researchers this year. The stated goal of the initiative is to accelerate progress on advancing the frontier of fundamental research in experimental physics by supporting brilliant mid-career scientists. Currently in its fourth year, the program aims to support 120 researchers over the next decade.
The award includes $1.3 million in funding over five years as well as inclusion in a vibrant and active interdisciplinary community with members at the cutting edge of physics sub-disciplines from institutions across the United States.
“Support from Moore is extremely valuable,” says Kawasaki, who has received many awards and grants for his research including an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award, a DARPA Young Faculty Award, and National Science Foundation CAREER Award. “It’s nice to have foundation support over a more extended period of time than standard federal grants. It gives us the ability to pursue higher risk, high reward directions than I would have done on a normal grant.”
Kawasaki is an expert in synthesizing and probing the properties of ultra-thin crystalline materials, some just a few atoms thick. When shrunk to these proportions, these materials often exhibit unique magnetic, electrical, topological and superconducting properties that could be useful in next-generation quantum and superconductor computing.
In the project selected by the Moore Foundation, Kawasaki and his team are investigating few-nanometer-thick membranes of Heusler compounds, a special type of single-crystalline material, using new methods developed in their lab. The magnetic and superconducting properties of Heusler compounds are activated and tuned by applying strain to them through bending or pulling.
The problem is controlling strain across fragile membranes of these crystals is extremely difficult, limiting the fundamental understanding of how strain induces the phenomena changes in these compounds.
To get around this, the team is developing new synthesis techniques. One involves depositing the crystals on top of a layer of graphene and using helium implantation to induce large strains, in a top-down patterned fashion. Another technique will be to deposit the films on curved surfaces, introducing a strain gradient from the bottom up.
In the end, Kawasaki hopes the work will identify new candidate materials that may find application for sensing, energy harvesting and quantum information. But, more generally, he hopes the work results in new techniques for producing these materials and reveal how strain engineering can tune competing magnetic, topological and superconducting interactions in these materials.
Support from the Moore Foundation will go a long way in making this research happen, supporting new graduate students and a new postdoctoral scholar. It will also help Kawasaki complete a helium-implantation setup and a “vacuum suitcase” that will allow his team to transport their sensitive materials to other facilities to do specialized measurements.
Kawasaki is also looking forward to joining the growing cohort of Moore Foundation investigators. “The community aspect of this program is really important and there’s a long-standing history of collaboration,” he says. “There are community-building events and annual meetings where principal investigators from all the physics sub-disciplines get together. It sounds like a great place to meet new collaborators and develop some new ideas. I’m excited to be part of that network.”
. . .
Originally published: October 8, 2025
Source: College of Engineering News
Author: Jason Daley
This article was first published on the College of Engineering news page and is reposted here with permission.