About

Peter Bennett is a professor in the Department of Physics at Arizona State University, with a research focus on the structure, growth kinetics, and electron transport properties of self-assembled surface nanostructures. His group employs a variety of surface techniques, including Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM), Low Energy Electron Microscopy (LEEM), UHV-Transmission Electron Microscopy (UHV-TEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Magneto-transport, and Electron Beam Lithography (EBL), combined with first-principles theory. Recent research has concentrated on metal/silicon systems capable of forming silicide nanowires, which are characterized by their nanoscale width, atomically perfect surfaces, and high quality, surpassing the capabilities of traditional top-down fabrication methods. These structures have potential applications in nanoscale interconnects, nanoelectrodes, sensors, and integrated silicon technology. Peter Bennett earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980 and his B.S. in Physics from the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 1974. His academic career at ASU began as an assistant professor in 1984, progressing to associate professor in 1990, and full professor in 1996. He served as the Department Chair of the Physics Department at ASU starting in 2013. Bennett has supervised numerous graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, contributing significantly to the fields of nanoscience, surface science, and materials physics. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and has received the Department Teaching Award. His research integrates experimental surface science techniques with theoretical modeling to advance understanding of nanostructure growth and electron transport phenomena.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Process management

Selected publications

• Online “Advanced Labs” in physics

  American Journal of Physics · 2025-05-22

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  At Arizona State University, we have built the first and only fully online Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, with a complete curriculum, including labs. The upper division Advanced Lab courses present a special challenge for online delivery. We address that using a set of custom-built simulator modules that replicate all the “imperfections” (noise, background, etc.) inherent in real-world data. The set of experiments duplicates those of the in-person classes. In this paper, we present an overview of these labs and discuss the advantages and challenges of delivering them online. We assert that these labs provide a valid and rigorous component for the fully online degree. The entire set of labs is available as Open Source Supplemental Materials and is shared for others to use in part or in whole, with suitable attribution.

  PublisherDOI

• Toward the Redefinition of Drilling Plan and Execution Via a Digital Drilling Ecosystem

  IADC/SPE International Drilling Conference and Exhibition · 2020 · 14 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Process management

  Abstract For the past few years, the oil and gas industry has invested in digitalization efforts for well construction and drilling operations with the goal of improving drilling efficiency, e.g. optimizing the time and costs of reaching drilling targets. It is widely recognized that this can be achieved by creating a standardized and structured wellbore planning and execution ecosystem. Today this is still missing; each step of the drilling activity planning is performed in separate spreadsheets and documents, and legacy applications that require point-to-point connections, frequent data importing and exporting, and manual typing and retyping. These inefficiencies make it difficult to standardize ways of working, accurately communicate the drilling activity plans to all stakeholders and partners involved in the value chain, and reuse data to improve the planning process. This paper describes the approach taken by one of the largest independent oil and gas operators in Europe toward an open, standardized, and structured digital drilling ecosystem that orchestrates the exchange of plans between systems while enforcing standardized plan structures from well construction, time estimation, and the time planner to the rig action plan and its connection to a rig control system. Central to this ecosystem is a "smart hub" that receives and centrally masters updated plans, checks each plan's conformance to the schema on which it is based, and distributes each committed plan to registered consumers. The smart hub provides a loose coupling between itself and connected plan consumers and publishers, which enables the easy connection of new systems or the replacement of one system with another. The operator described in this paper is deploying this smart hub to act as its single source of truth for activity planning data and to orchestrate the exchange of this data throughout the planning and execution phases. So far, this approach has elevated the collaboration within the organization and with stakeholders. The longer-term goal of the approach is to inspire the development of new software applications and eliminate old bottlenecks related to manual typing and iteration, thereby improving the user experience and defining new standards for better drilling efficiency. By leveraging the connection of automated drilling to the digital drilling ecosystem, the operator believes a reduction in drilling time of 15-25% can be achieved. This will create substantial cost savings and thus allow smaller reservoirs to be more profitable. Other benefits include more accurate time estimates and resource planning, more efficient logistical services, and better data-driven decision-making.

  PublisherDOI

• \textbf{\textit{In Situ}}\textbf{ Resistivity of Endotaxial FeSi}$_{\mathrm{\mathbf{2}}}$\textbf{ Nanowires on Si(110)}

  Bulletin of the American Physical Society · 2015-10-17

  article1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• <i>In situ</i> resistivity of endotaxial FeSi2 nanowires on Si(110)

  Journal of Applied Physics · 2015-09-25 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We present in situ ultra-high vacuum measurements of the resistivity ρ of self-assembled endotaxial FeSi2 nanowires (NWs) on Si(110) using a variable-spacing two-point method with a moveable scanning tunneling microscope tip and fixed contact pad. The resistivity at room temperature was found to be nearly constant down to NW width W = 4 nm, but rose sharply to nearly double the bulk value at W = 3 nm. These data are not well-fit by a simple Fuch-Sondheimer model for boundary scattering, suggesting that other factors, possibly quantum effects, may be significant at the smallest dimensions. For a NW width of 4 nm, partial oxidation increased ρ by approximately 50%, while cooling from 300 K to 150 K decreased ρ by approximately 10%. The relative insensitivity of ρ to NW size or oxidation or cooling is attributed to a high concentration of vacancies in the FeSi2 structure, with a correspondingly short length for inelastic electron scattering, which obscures boundary scattering except in the smallest NWs. It is remarkable that the vacancy concentration persists in very small structures.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• \textit{In situ} resistivity of endotaxial FeSi$_{2}$ nanowires on Si(110)

  Bulletin of the American Physical Society · 2014-03-04

  article1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Development and Testing of a Field Screening Method Based on Bubbling Extraction and Photoionization Detection for Measurement of Benzene and Total <scp>VOCs</scp>

  Groundwater Monitoring & Remediation · 2014-08-01 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract A field screening method was developed for rapid measurement of benzene and gasoline range total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHg) concentrations in groundwater. The method is based on collecting photoionization detector (PID) measurements from vapor samples. The vapor samples are collected by bubbling air through groundwater samples (air sparging) with a constant volume, temperature and sparging rate. The level of accuracy, sensitivity, precision, and statistical significance of the estimated concentrations, derived from the screening method, are comparable to conventional laboratory analytical results at concentrations equal to or greater than 150 µg/L for benzene and greater than 50 µg/L for TPHg. The method's concentration estimations can assist in making real‐time decisions regarding location of dissolved plumes and light nonaqueous phase liquid (LNAPL) source zones at many fuel release sites. The screening method was tested in the laboratory and in the field with 208 and 107 samples, respectively. The study concludes that the screening method can be used as a tool to aid in completing a site conceptual model as well as analyzing groundwater from monitoring wells.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• In situ resistivity of endotaxial FeSi 2 nanowires on Si(110)

  APS · 2014-03-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Minerals as Ecosystems in the Nutrient-Limited Subsurface

  2014 AGU Fall Meeting · 2014-12-16

  articleSenior author
  Publisher

• Comments on “Isotopic tracing of perchlorate sources in groundwater from Pomona, California” by Neil C. Sturchio, Abelardo Beloso Jr., Linnea J. Heraty, Stephen Wheatcraft, Rina Schumer

  Applied Geochemistry · 2014-12-03 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Geochemical reactivity in the mixing zone of a coastal salt lake and its effect on microbialite formation, Lake Clifton, Western Australia

  AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts · 2013-12-01 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author
  Publisher

Recent grants

• Insitu Transport Measurement of Epitaxial Nanostructures

  NSF · $312k · 2005–2010

• NIRT: Silicide Nanowires for Nanoelectronics

  NSF · $1.4M · 2003–2008

Frequent coauthors

• Zhian He

  Guangzhou Education Bureau

  13 shared

• David J. Smith

  13 shared

• Ian Robinson

  London Centre for Nanotechnology

  10 shared

• J. A. DONNELLY

  9 shared

• R. M. Tromp

  IBM (United States)

  7 shared

• P. O'Boyle

  6 shared

• R. J. Phaneuf

  University of Maryland, College Park

  6 shared

• J. A. Venables

  6 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  University of Wisconsin-Madison

  1980

• B.S.

  University of Minnesota-Duluth

  1974

Awards & honors

• Fellow, American Physical Society