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
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.
Recent Publications
Composition Effects on Ultrafast Optical Properties of CuxOy Thin Films: A Transient Absorption Study.

Shenje, S.Larson, Y.Zhao, S. Ullrich: Composition Effects on Ultrafast Optical Properties of CuxOy Thin Films: A Transient Absorption Study. J. Phys. Chem. C 2020 124 (45), 24908-24918.
Coupling between plasmonic nanohole array and nanorod arrays: the emerging of a new extraordinary optical transmission mode and epsilon-near-zero property

Yanfeng Wang, Hoang Mai Luong, Zhengjun Zhang, and Yiping Zhao, “Coupling between plasmonic nanohole array and nanorod arrays: the emerging of a new extraordinary optical transmission mode and epsilon-near-zero property,” J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 53, 275202 (2020).
Enhanced resonant Faraday rotation in multilayer magneto-plasmonic nano-hole arrays and their sensing application

Hoang Luong, Minh Pham, Tho Nguyen, and Yiping Zhao, "Enhanced resonant Faraday rotation in multilayer magneto-plasmonic nano-hole arrays and their sensing application," The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 123, 28377–28384 (2019).
Generalized ellipsometry characterization of Ag nanorod arrays prepared by oblique angle deposition

Bilin Ge, Steven Larson, Huatian Tu, Yiping Zhao, and Yiyan Fei, "Generalized ellipsometry characterization of Ag nanorod arrays prepared by oblique angle deposition," Nanotechnology 31, 075705 (2020).