Johnston Research Group

Welcome!

Welcome to the homepage of the Johnston Research Group. The members of our group are associated with the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the Institute for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing (IAMM), and the Center for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing (CAMM). Here you will find information about our group members, research highlights, an up-to-date list of publications, a list of our active collaborators, and other useful links.

Highlights in the press

Superconducting silicon surface

F. Ming et al., Nature Physics 19, 500–506 (2023) — Our collaboration with Prof. Weitering studying the superconducting state of one-third monolayers of tin deposited on a Si(111) substrate has recenty appeared in Nature Physics. The work was also featured on the cover of the April 2023 issue.

X-rays Reveal Electronic Details of Nickel-based Superconductors, a story about our recent papers published in PRX (here and here studying the electronic stucture of the low-valence nickelates.

Physicists uncover secrets of world’s thinnest superconductor , a story on our recent paper published in Nature Communications.

Researchers establish proof of principle in superconductor study.

Weird superconductor leads double life.

A new way to look at MITs. - A summary of our recent collaborative study on the rare-earth Nickelates. This work was funded by UTK's Organized Research Unit program.

Order on Command: Our collaborative study Switching Magnetism and Superconductivity with Spin-Polarized Current in Iron-Based Superconductor [Seokhwan Choi et al., PRL 119, 227001 (2017)] was selected both as an Editor's Suggestion and for a feature in Physics. The work was also featured at phys.org.

Our article Aspects of electron-phonon interactions with strong forward scattering in FeSe Thin Films on SrTiO₃ substrates was selected as one of the highlights of 2017 by the journal Superconductor Science and Technology.

Rising Energy Costs - It’s rare that additional fees are welcome, but as Steven Johnston and his colleagues explain in Nature Communications, sometimes they can actually be a pleasant surprise.

Good Vibrations - UT's Steven Johnston and Colleagues Find that Phonons Boost Superconductivity in Iron Selenides.

High-temperature superconductivity: Electron mirages in an iron salt - Nature News and Views by J. Zaanen.

A sign-changing gap - Science Magazine Editor's Choice for Chi et al., Phys. Rev. B 89, 104522 (2014).

Funding Acknowledgements

In the past, we have been funded in part by the US Department of Energy's SciDAC program, the Office of Naval Research, the University of Tennessee (UTK) Science Alliance's Joint Directed Research and Development program, and UTK's Organized Research Unit program.