PAGE 3 CAMPUS RESEARCH
BACK TO BASICS: AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. IORDANOV Moses Simmons Associate Editor Dr. Tsvetelin Iordanov is an understated man at Georgia Southwestern and has taught at the university for 16 years. Dr. Iordanov is a fundamental building block at Georgia Southwestern through his research and teaching. What kind of research are you currently working on? “So what we’ve done most recently, which was done for undergraduate students. Most of it is theoretical, but there was one experimental, which took a long time in particular. We did focus on polymers, particularly the optical properties of polymers and the nonlinear optics. So like what happens when it triggers, which is a very big research topic in nonlinear optics. Then the more infrared part of the spectrum, which could be applied to lasers. Another project we did was related to band gaps, the gap between the conducting and valence banding in semiconductors. You need the band gaps to be specific distances to be a semiconducting material. So we were looking for silicon based plastics that had semiconducting properties, and were suitable for organic solar cells. However we had a huge selection of possible materials, so we characterized them theoretically. Another of my more recent projects was combustion properties of ketones and aldehydes, which are leftover from the combustion of diesel, to cut down on pollution. The Department of Energy was particularly interested in that. The experimental project was actually related to aerosols, so we created an experimental method for measuring volatiles in aerosols. We measured the rate of nucleation, which is the
could ever fix it, because it’s a little bit broken and lack the money to fix the machine. So as you flip the spin, there is a field and as it spins it allows electrons to fall in one direction or the other. You’d see this as making ones and zeros, being the basic idea of quantum computing. Though there are laboratories doing this experimentally already. What I used to do with my work, I could translate something like that, and treat systems like this. Why quantum computing doesn’t work for any other systems, is because of the vibration of the molecules. Molecules vibrate all of particles that come together to the time, and the spin is obscured by form a crystal, bubble, or droplet. it. You have to lower the temperature This came from a student who just to the nanokelvin, which wasn’t poswanted to find a different solution sible until very recently, to observe and tried something different. The just the flip of the nuclei’s spin. Lucklittle change they made solved all our ily you can just plug in zero kelvin in problems, and we published. That calculations. However if I don’t do it, I was a pretty neat paper, because it have the feeling someone else will do was experimental. It was published it very soon, unfortunately.” in the Journal of Chemical Education, because we were a small institution What do you hope to see in the for education. These were all peer future? reviewed papers, because with chem- “I hope to see junior high students being more interested in science, istry you don’t get to publish anything without a peer review. The last because for most part, that’s where it ends. It’s incredibly rare to get a project’s paper had nine reviewers, student interested in science. Most of who weren’t saying no, but couldn’t the time people will be more interunderstand it completely. Mostly because they weren’t physical chem- ested in something more applicable, like engineering. This is a fundamenists, and it was mostly all physical tal science, the fundamental science, chemistry. However, we shouldn’t and that’s where the innovation write something just for the sake comes from. The engineers didn’t do of publishing, I (and my students) should contribute our leaf to the tree all the things to make a cell phone, they just applied the fundamental of knowledge.” science. The fundamental science isn’t fully developed, it’s not. Some Without budget constraints, what people tell me it’s wrong, but it’s not would you research? “Actually right now, what I really want because your cell phone works right? Quantum chemistry is right, we’ll to do, isn’t from budget constraints certainly add to it, at least I hope so. so much. It’s more about the time This isn’t going to happen unless we commitment and work of course, but have students coming in to teach I want to do research on the nuclear fundamental science to. It’s not a quantum effects on helium nuclei. sustainable future for academia to Even though they have a heavier nu- not have the students to teach, or be cleus they don’t necessarily move as interested in fundamental sciences. a proton, they still have a spin. Like Unfortunately due to how everything with nuclear magnetic resonance all works, this is being overlooked. I you do is use a radio frequency to would just hope there’s more interest test the spin out there of the nuclei. in fundamental science in the future.”
