Expert Profile
Javier Sanchez-Yamagishi
Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Javier Sanchez-Yamagishi is an experimental physicist who discovers new approaches to quantum physics for the development of new devices.
Areas of Expertise
- Quantum Devices
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Electronic Transport
- 2-dimensional Materials
- Nanoscale Magnetometry
- Quantum Phenomena
- Quantum Computing
Biography
The Sanchez-Yamagishi lab seeks to discover new funky quantum behaviors for electrons that have no counterpart in the world of classical physics. Their strategy is to design strange landscapes for the electrons to live in and then observe how they behave and interact with their neighbors. To accomplish this, they use advanced nanofabrication techniques as well as electronic, optical, and magnetic characterization methods. Their favorite electron playground is 2-dimensional layered materials, where electrons are naturally confined into a 2-dimensional plane and quantum effects are more apparent. They also explore the use of quantum sensors based on spin qubits in diamond as a probe of electronic physics. Their end goal is to invent new useful quantum devices that manipulate charge, light, heat, spin, and information.
Media


Media Appearances
Metal sheets, ultra-thin feats: are China’s 2D metals the future of electronics?
South China Morning Post, 3/16/2025
Articles
Metals squeezed to thickness of just two atoms
Nature
Manipulating moires by controlling heterostrain in van der Waals devices
Nano Letters
Exceptional electronic transport and quantum oscillations in thin bismuth crystals grown inside van der Waals materials
Nature Materials
Electrically driven amplification of terahertz acoustic waves in graphene
Nature Communications
Controllable strain-driven topological phase transition and dominant surface-state transport in HfTe5
Nature Communications
Education
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ph.D., Physics, 2015
Rutgers University
B.S., Physics, 2008
Accomplishments
- UCI Hellman Fellowship
- National Science Foundation Career Award
- National Academy of Sciences Kavli Frontiers Fellow
- Harvard Quantum Optics Center Postdoctoral Fellowship
- National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship