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Sachith Dissanayake

  • Assistant Professor (Research), Department of Mechanical Engineering

PhD, University of Virginia, 2015

304 Hopeman
sachith.dissanayake@rochester.edu


Biography

Professor Sachith Dissanayake received his bachelor’s degree in physics from University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and PhD in physics from University of Virginia. Immediately after his PhD, he joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) as a postdoctoral research associate in the Quantum Condensed Matter Division. He joins the University of Rochester as an assistant professor in research, after serving as a postdoctoral associate of physics at Duke University.

Research Overview

Prof. Dissanayake’s research concentration is experimental condensed matter physics. His research is mainly focused on studying strongly correlated quantum materials such as superconductors, frustrated magnets, multiferroics etc. and tuning their properties using external parameters such as pressure and magnetic field. Using various experimental techniques he investigates the interplay between spin, lattice, and orbital degrees of freedom of novel quantum phases. He is proficient in neutron scattering and x-diffraction techniques of bulk materials including measurements at extreme sample environments such as high pressure and high magnetic field. His research at Rochester focuses on synthesizing and characterizing the materials at extreme pressure and temperature conditions in addition to developing new techniques in efforts of discovering new materials with exotic properties.

Representative Publications

  1. Sachith Dissanayake, Zhenzhong Shi, Jeffrey G. Rau, Rabindranath Bag, William Steinhardt, Nicholas P. Butch, Matthias Frontzek, Andrey Podlesnyak, David Graf, Casey Marjerrison, Jue Liu, Michel J.P. Gingras, Sara Haravifard , “Towards understanding the magnetic properties of the breathing pyrochlore compound Ba3Yb2Zn5O11: A single crystal study”, Accepted to npj Quantum materials (2022)https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2111.06293
  2. S.E. Dissanayake, F. Ye, W. Tian, T. Nakano, J. Gouchi, S. Watanabe, Y. Uwatoko and M. Matsuda, “Pressure dependence of the magnetic ground state in CePtSi 2 ”, Phys. Rev. B 105, 245111 (2022)
  3. Tao Hong, Tao Ying, Qing Huang, Sachith E. Dissanayake, Yiming Qiu, Mark M. Turnbull, Andrey A. Podlesnyak, Yan Wu, Huibo Cao, Yaohua Liu, Izuru Umehara, Jun Gouchi, Yoshiya Uwatoko, Masaaki Matsuda, David A. Tennant, Gia-Wei Chern, Kai P. Schmidt & Stefan Wessel, “Evidence for pressure induced unconventional quantum criticality in the coupled spin ladder antiferromagnet C 9 H 18 N 2 CuBr 4 ”, Nat Commun 13, 3073 (2022)
  4. Rabindranath Bag, Matthew Ennis, Chunxiao Liu, Sachith E. Dissanayake, Zhenzhong Shi, Jue Liu, Leon Balents, and Sara Haravifard, “Realization of quantum dipoles in triangular lattice crystal Ba 3 Yb(BO 3) 3 ”, Phys. Rev. B 104, L220403 (2021)
  5. William Steinhardt, PA Maksimov, Sachith Dissanayake, Zhenzhong Shi, Nicholas P Butch, David Graf, Andrey Podlesnyak, Yaohua Liu, Yang Zhao, Guangyong Xu, Jeffrey W Lynn, Casey Marjerrison, AL Chernyshev, Sara Haravifard, “Phase Diagram of YbZnGaO 4 in Applied Magnetic Field”, npj Quantum Materials 6, 78 (2021)
  6. William M. Steinhardt, Zhenzhong Shi, Anjana Samarakoon, Sachith Dissanayake, David Graf, Yaohua Liu, Wei Zhu, Casey Marjerrison, Cristian D. Batista, Sara Haravifard, “Constraining the parameter space of a quantum spin liquid candidate in applied field with iterative optimization”, Phys. Rev. Research 3, 033050 (2021)
  7. Elena Gati, John M Wilde, Rustem Khasanov, Li Xiang, Sachith Dissanayake, Ritu Gupta, Masaaki Matsuda, Feng Ye, Bianca Haberl, Udhara Kaluarachchi, Robert J McQueeney, Andreas Kreyssig, Sergey L Bud'ko, Paul C Canfield, “Formation of short-range magnetic order and avoided ferromagnetic quantum criticality in pressurized LaCrGe 3 ”, Phys. Rev. B 103, 075111 (2021) (Editor’s suggestion)
  8. Masaaki Matsuda, Sachith E Dissanayake, Tao Hong, Y Ozaki, T Ito, Masashi Tokunaga, XZ Liu, Maciej Bartkowiak, Oleksandr Prokhnenko, “Magnetic field induced antiferromagnetic cone structure in multiferroic BiFeO 3 ”, Phys. Rev. Materials 4, 034412 (2020)
  9. S E Dissanayake , M Matsuda , K Munakata, H Kagi, J Gouchi and Y Uwatoko, “Development of cubic anvil type high pressure apparatus for neutron diffraction” J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 31, 384001 (2019)
  10. Sachith Dissanayake, Chunruo Duan, Junjie Yang, Jun Liu, Masaaki Matsuda, Changming Yue, John A. Schneeloch, Jeffrey C. Y. Teo and Despina Louca “Electronic band tuning under pressure in MoTe 2 topological semimetal”, npj Quantum Materials 4, 45 (2019)
  11. Bianca Haberl, Sachith Dissanayake, Yan Wu, Dean A.A. Myles, Antonio M. dos Santos, Mark Loguillo, Gerald M. Rucker, Douglas P. Armitage, Malcolm Cochran, Katie M. Andrews, C. Hoffmann, Huibo Cao, Masaaki Matsuda, Flora Meilleur, Feng Ye, Jamie J. Molaison, Reinhard Boehler, “Next generation diamond cell and applications to single-crystal neutron diffraction”, Review of Scientific Instruments 89, 092902 (2018)
  12. Tao Hong, Masashige Matsumoto, Yiming Qiu, Wangchun Chen, Thomas R. Gentile, Shannon Watson, Firas F. Awwadi, Mark M. Turnbull, Sachith E. Dissanayake, Harish Agrawal, Rasmus Toft-Petersen, Bastian Klemke, Kris Coester, Kai P. Schmidt and David A. Tennant, “Higgs amplitude mode in a two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnet near the quantum critical point”, Nature Physics 13, 638–642 (2017)
  13. M. Matsuda, F. Ye, S. E. Dissanayake, J.-G. Cheng, S. Chi, J. Ma, H. D. Zhou, J.-Q. Yan, S. Kasamatsu, O. Sugino, T. Kato, K. Matsubayashi, T. Okada, and Y. Uwatoko, “Pressure dependence of the magnetic ground states in MnP”, Phys. Rev. B 93, 100405(R) (2016)
  14. R. Koborinai, S.E. Dissanayake*, M. Reehuis, S. -H. Lee and T. Katsufuji, “An orbital glass state of a nearly metallic spinel, CoV 2 O 4 ”, Physical Review Letters 116, 037201 (2016) (Corresponding Author)
  15. J. Yang, A. M. Samarakoon, S. E. Dissanayake, H. Ueda, I. Klich, K. Iida, D. Pajerowski, N. Butch, Q. Huang, J.R.D. Copley, S.-H. Lee, “A spin jam state of a frustrated magnet”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 112, No. 37, 11519 (2015)
  16. S.E. Dissanayake, C. Chan, S. Ji, J. Lee, Y. Qiu, K. C. Rule, B. Lake, M. Green, M. Hagihala, X. G. Zheng, T. K. Ng and S.-H. Lee, “Magnetic-field-induced instability of the cooperative paramagnetic state in Zn x Co 4-x (OD) 6 Cl 2 ”, Phys. Rev. B 85, 174435 (2012)

Research Interests

  • Condensed matter physics
  • Quantum materials
  • Superconductivity
  • Superconductors
  • Frustrated magnets
  • Multiferroics
  • Spin, lattice, and orbital degrees of freedom of novel quantum phases
  • Neutron scattering
  • X-diffraction