Abstract: Fine control of the various microscopic charge, spin, and energy carriers that exist as quantized excitations in materials is central to technologies in the solid state. In particular, key players are electrons, magnetic excitations, and phonons, and the performance of a diverse array of devices for computation, sensing, and energy conversion and storage is dependent on the mélange of intrinsic and extrinsic scattering mechanisms that dominate the transport of these carriers.

Here, we explore several promising material systems that offer exceptional transport characteristics in their own unique ways, with the potential to mitigate the dissipation of both energy and information transduction. I will present some of our recent work on understanding resistive and far-from-equilibrium transport limited by carrier-carrier scattering of spin waves in yttrium iron garnet and phonons in suspended graphene, as well as some modulated micro-Brillouin light scattering and electrothermal techniques for probing coupled transport in these materials and interfaces.

In addition, I will discuss some of our work elucidating defect-limited magnon and crossover ballistic spinon transport in quasi-low dimensional spin ladder/chain compounds. The talk will conclude by discussing some potential new candidate systems with long-range and tunable carrier transport, including two-dimensional materials and their superstructures.