Condensed Matter Physics Experiment

The largest research area in physics today deals with the diverse and fascinating properties of condensed matter, encompassing metals, semiconductors, superconductors, polymers, fluids and superfluids, magnets, insulators, and the like. This area corresponds to the single largest research group in the department, involving eight experimentalists and 11 theorists.

Experimental groups ordinarily consist of a professor, possibly a postdoc, and several graduate students, with support from a federal source, such as the NSF or DOE, or from an industrial source. Groups benefit from each other through sharing of laboratory equipment and expertise, as well as through formal collaborations.

While each research group is a separate entity, there are a number of excellent departmental facilities that are shared by all. These include a well-staffed machine shop, an efficient student shop with supervised training classes, a state-of-the-art electronics shop especially proficient in digital electronics, a materials preparation laboratory contataing a variety of workhorse instruments like vacuum systems and microscopes, an electron microscope, a Fourier transform spectrometer, and a liquid helium and nitrogen facility.

In addition to strong interactions among themselves, the condensed matter experimentalists benefit from a large and active theory group that has expertise in a broad range of subjects.

Currently, there are about 50 ph.D. students in condensed matter physics, and at least that many ongoing research projects. Some of the problems being investigated are listed below. They reflect the major directions of current condensed matter research.

• Scanning tunneling microscopy studies of quantum electronic phenomena and atomic scale reactions at surfaces of semiconductors and semiconducting heterostructures
• Thermodynamic, transport, and magnetic properties of novel materials, especially quasi one-dimensional materials such as electronic polymers and organic crystals
• Time resolved spectroscopy (10^-12 sec. to 10 sec.) and nonlinear optical response of novel materials
• Magnetic properties of molecular and polymer-based ferromagnets
• Electrical transport properties of films and crystals of high-temperature oxide superconductors
• NMR studies of vortex dynamics, structure, and electronic properties of oxide and fulleride superconductors
• Optoelectronic, microelectronic, and nanoelectronic interface atomic structure
• Semiconductor interface growth, processing, and characterization by ultrahigh vacuum surface science techniques
• Schottky barriers and heterojunction band offsets
• Raman and infrared studies of oxide superconductors
• Quantum effects on transport in submicron metal systems
• Raman scattering and photoluminescence studies of GaAs-based quantum-well structures
• Brilloum scattering studies of metallic superlattices and semiconductors under high pressure
• Magnetic, electrical, and optical studies of highly doped semiconducting magnetic oxides
• Pattern formation and transitions in convecting classical fluids
• Onset of chaos and development of turbulent structures in classical fluids Nonlinear and chaotic response in ferromagnetic resonance

Affiliated FacuIty

Surface effects and long range exchange coupling in magnetic/nonmagnetic layers and superlattices

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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