L. Andrew Wray

Assistant Professor of Physics 
New York University

Email: lawray@nyu.edu
Personal Homepage: http://physics.nyu.edu/wraylab/index.html

Research Interests:
Experimental solid state physics, strongly correlated systems, topological insulators, atomic-scale wave functions, light-matter interactions (EUV/X-ray)

Biography:

L. Andrew Wray is Assistant Professor of Physics. He holds a Ph.D. in Experimental Condensed Matter Physics from Princeton University (2010) and a B.A. in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and conducted pre-doctoral research at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. After completing his Ph.D., Wray led research projects at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES) prior to joining the NYU faculty in 2014.

Wray’s research focuses on the discovery, characterization and manipulation of novel quantum states inside materials. His experiments have been instrumental in identifying the first realizations of topologically ordered quantum states of matter such as the topological insulator and topological superconductor. Incisive in-situ investigation of the energy and momentum profiles of quantum states is made possible by rapidly advancing capabilities at state of the art X-ray facilities. Wray maintains active involvement in proposing new X-ray science technologies and developing novel methods to simulate and analyze resonant interactions between X-rays and matter.

Selected Publications:

  • “Measurement of the spectral line shapes for orbital excitations in the Mott insulator CoO using high-resolution resonant inelastic x-ray scattering”, L. A. Wray, J. Li, Z. Q. Qiu, J. Wen, Z. Xu, G. Gu, S.-W. Huang, E. Arenholz, W. Yang, Z. Hussain, and Y.-D. Chuang, Phys. Rev. B 88, 035105 (2013). 
  • “Device Physics: Topological transistor”, L. A. Wray, Nature Physics 8, 705 (2012). 
  • “Spin-orbital ground states of superconducting doped topological insulators: A Majorana platform”, L.A. Wray, Y. Xia, S.-Y. Xu, D. Qian, A.V. Fedorov, H. Lin, A. Bansil, Y.S. Hor, R.J. Cava, L. Fu, M.Z. Hasan,Phys. Rev. B 83, 224516 (2011). 
  • “A topological insulator surface under strong Coulomb, magnetic and disorder perturbations”, L.A. Wray, S.-Y. Xu, Y. Xia, D. Hsieh, A.V. Fedorov, H. Lin, A. Bansil, Y.S. Hor, R.J. Cava, M.Z. Hasan, Nature Physics 7, 32-37 (2011). 
  • “Observation of topological order in a superconducting doped topological insulator”, L.A. Wray, S.-Y. Xu, Y. Xia, D. Qian, A.V. Fedorov, H. Lin, A. Bansil, Y.S. Hor, R.J. Cava, M.Z. Hasan, Nature Physics 6, 855 (2010). 
  • “Momentum Dependence of Quasiparticle Gap, Strong Coupling Dispersion Kink, and Tightly Bound Cooper Pairs in the High-TC (Sr/Ba) 1-x (K/Na) xFe2As2 Superconductors”, L. Wray, D. Qian, D. Hsieh, Y. Xia, L. Li, J.G. Checkelsky, A. Pasupathy, K.K. Gomes, A.V. Federov, G.F. Chen, J.L. Luo, A. Yazdani, N.P. Ong, N.L. Wang, M.Z. Hasan, Physical Review B 78, 184508 (2008).