Condensed Matter Physics
There are numerous graduate students and postdocs working in condensed matter physics and statistical mechanics.
Several people working in this area are also members of the Center for Simulational Physics.
The department offers several advanced graduate courses in condensed matter theory, many-body theory, mathematical and computational methods, and statistical mechanics.
Researchers
Biophysics and Bioinformatics
Biochemical reaction networks; bioinformatics; biological molecules; computational biology; functional genomics; neural networks; polymers; spectroscopy of biomaterials.
Computational and Simulational Methods
Computational many-body perturbation theory; density functional theory; exact diagonalization; lattice dynamics; molecular dynamics; Monte-Carlo simulation; numerical renormalization group; parallel supercomputing; quantum Monte-Carlo.
Electron and Phonon Dynamics in Nanostructures
Carbon fullerenes and nanotubes; electron-phonon interactions in nanoparticles; mesoscopic and low-dimensional systems; optical properties of nanostructures; phonon dynamics in nanoparticles and nanocrystals; semiconductor films and superlattices.
Laser Spectroscopy Methods
Coherent transient spectroscopy; fluorescence line narrowing; IR spectroscopy; nonlinear spectroscopy; photoconductivity; photon avalanche; photon echo; spectral hole burning; thermoluminescence; ultrafast spectroscopy.
Material Science
Ferroelectric materials; optoelectronic materials; phosphor materials; photorefractive materials; photovoltaic materials; semiconductors.
Materials Synthesis
Laser-heated pedestal growth; molecular-beam epitaxy.
Optical Properties of Solids
Charge transfer processes in insulators; dephasing and decoherence in solids; dynamical processes in glasses and solids; dynamics of elementary excitations; electron-phonon and phonon-phonon interactions; energy transfer and energy relaxation; molecular impurities; phonon dynamics in disordered and amorphous systems.
Phase Transitions and Critical Phenomena
Dynamical critical phenomena; finite-size scaling; magnetic phase transitions; phase transitions in alloys; solid-solid phase transitions; spin dynamics.
Statistical Mechanics
Fick's law of diffusion; fractional statistics; hardsphere fluids; Langevin equation; low-dimensional fluids; nonequilibrium statistical mechanics; recurrence relation method.
Strongly Correlated Quantum Systems
Bose-Einstein condensation; colossal magnetoresistance; Hubbard model; Luttinger liquid theory; metal-insulator transitions; nonperturbative methods; quantum Hall effect; superconductivity; vortex dynamics in quantum fluids.
Surface Physics
Crystal growth; molecule-surface interactions; surface structure and reactivity; vibrational properties of molecules on surfaces.
Theoretical Materials Science
Density functional theory; electronic structure theory; high-pressure phenomena; periodic composites and superlattices; structure and dynamics of lattice defects; theory of compound solid solutions; transition-metal oxides.
