Prof Nandini Trivedi
Award Year: 2021 | Degree Year: 1981
Nandini Trivedi received an MS in Physics from IIT Delhi in 1981 and a PhD from Cornell in 1986. She was a professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research for a decade prior to joining Ohio State University in 2004 as a Professor in the Department of Physics. She was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2020, a Distinguished Scholar of the Ohio State University in 2019 and Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2010.
Nandini Trivedi has made important contributions to the theoretical understanding of quantum materials. The big questions in the field are to understand how electrons and atoms, which follow the laws of quantum mechanics, get organized and how new phases of matter emerge. Trivedi’s research has impacted several major areas in quantum matter including (1) superconductor to insulator transitions, (2) high-temperature superconductivity, (3) ultracold atomic gases, and (4) topological materials including Weyl semimetals and quantum spin liquids. Her research is characterized by the innovative combination of numerical techniques like quantum Monte Carlo with analytical methods and close collaboration with experimental groups.
Superconductors are materials where electrical current flows without any resistance due to the collective behaviour of billions of electron pairs condensing into a single quantum wave function! Their applications range from MRI magnets to quantum information processing. The standard paradigm focuses on the metal to superconductor transition as the temperature is lowered. Trivedi’s research goes beyond this paradigm and leads to surprising new insights into systems that exhibit a direct transition from a superconducting to an insulating state. Her theoretical predictions of a novel insulator with pairs of electrons, spectroscopic signatures near the superconductor-insulator transition, and the nature of this transition have all been tested experimentally.
Another example of her current research that goes beyond the standard paradigms involves quantum spin liquids, exotic phases of matter where the magnetic moments remain disordered down to the lowest temperatures, unlike conventional magnetic materials that exhibit ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic ordering. However, unlike a trivially disordered paramagnetic state, a quantum spin liquid possesses long-range quantum entanglement, a property that is at the heart of creating topological qubits for quantum computers. Trivedi’s research has predicted novel spin liquid states in a certain class of layered transition metal oxides and elucidated their properties.
In honoring Prof Nandini Trivedi, IIT Delhi recognizes the outstanding contributions made by her in Teaching and Research. Through her achievements, Prof Trivedi has brought glory to the name of the Institute.
