Eric Arsenault, Ph.D.

Eric Arsenault is a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University in the group of Professor Xiaoyang Zhu. He received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, under the mentorship of Professor Graham Fleming. Prior to that, Arsenault earned his B.A. in chemistry and in physics from Wesleyan University.

During his Ph.D., Arsenault studied natural photosynthetic and bioinspired model systems in order to understand how quantum mechanical electron-vibrational interactions influence the dynamics of energy transfer and charge separation. Through the application and development of original ultrafast spectroscopic methods, this research established several fundamental principles governing efficient light energy conversion. Currently, Arsenault’s research is aimed at understanding correlated quantum states in two-dimensional materials. This work utilizes ultrafast spectroscopy and microscopy to probe collective vibrations in these two-dimensional semiconductor systems in order to understand how the potential energy landscape is responsible for the emergence of exotic quantum states. The unifying theme of Arsenault’s work is to understand how interactions between electrons and nuclei govern the potential energy landscape of a system and ultimately dictate the dynamics of energy and charge flow.

While at Berkeley, Arsenault was supported by the Berkeley Fellowship for Graduate Study and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. His research was also recognized at the 22nd International Conference on Ultrafast Phenomena where he was the recipient of the Best Student Paper Prize.