From an early age, Félix has always been curious about science. As a child, he was captivated by documentaries discussing space-time, black holes, particle physics, and all sorts of fascinating things that didn't (and to a large extent, he admits, still don't) make sense to him. His enthusiasm for physics was further reinforced in high school and CEGEP, where he was lucky enough to have great Physics and Mathematics professors. By presenting the subject in an engaging and enjoyable manner, they sparked his curiosity to study in this field.
These experiences led Félix to pursue a Bachelor's degree in Engineering Physics at Polytechnique Montreal, where he was awarded the prestigious Schulich Leader Scholarship. After completing his undergraduate studies, he was certain that there was still much more he wanted to learn about the subject. Pursuing a graduate degree in Physics thus felt like the most natural path. However, he was unsure of the field for his graduate studies and whether to study experimental or theoretical physics. Although theoretical physics felt daunting at the time, considering his absence of research experience in the field, he ultimately decided to delve into it and discovered a deep fascination with the subject.
Félix is currently doing research in condensed matter physics under the supervision of Prof. Yong-Baek Kim. Much of his research has focused on novel phases of matter called Quantum Spin Liquids. These novel states of matter have attracted much interest in recent years because they can host fractionalized quasiparticles. Namely, the excitations in these systems are fundamentally different from the electrons, protons, and neutrons that constitute all materials. For instance, these particles can carry spin but no charge and have unusual exchange statistics, which are neither fermionic nor bosonic.
In particular, much of Félix’s recent work has focused on a class of materials called quantum spin ice – which, despite the confusing name, is just a specific example of a Quantum Spin Liquid on the pyrochlore lattice in the figure below. Quantum spin ice is a spectacular phase of matter that realizes the lattice equivalent of quantum electrodynamics, meaning that the material hosts emergent photon-like modes (i.e., excitations similar to light particles). This “emergent light” in quantum spin ice differs significantly from the light we are all used to. For instance, its speed should be approximately 1 m/s (in contrast to 3x108m/s for conventional light in a vacuum), implying that one could easily outpace it in a race. Despite the apparent abstract nature of all of this, he has collaborated directly with experimentalists to test some of his predictions. As a result of some of this work, Félix received a Vanier Graduate Scholarship last year– one of the most prestigious awards for Ph.D. students in Canada.
Figure: Spin ice compounds have a pyrochlore lattice formed by a network of corner-sharing tetrahedra. Local magnetic moments live at the sites of this pyrochlore lattice. Two moments are forced to point towards the center of the tetrahedron and two outwards. If this "2-in-2-out" rule is broken, a defect tetrahedron that acts as a source of the emergent field is created.
Félix is uncertain what the future holds and whether his work will be related to his current research interests. He only hopes to continue solving exciting and intellectually stimulating problems. When not at the office or trying to find new ways to explain to his family and partner what he is working on, Félix enjoys playing soccer and rock climbing.