Research in the Physics Department covers a wide area of topics in condensed matter systems.
Experiment: Activities span from molecular materials organic and inorganic semiconductors, wide bandgap semiconductors, point defects, rare earth doping, and ferroelectrics. Exciton dynamics in molecular crystals and organic semiconductors, including singlet exciton fission and triplet exciton fusion, is studied via pump and probe spectroscopy and fluorescence dynamics (Biaggio). Other techniques include nonlinear optical spectroscopy (Biaggio) and infrared optical spectroscopy under application of hydrostatic pressure, and magnetic fields (Stavola). Point defects in insulating materials with ferroelectric domain walls and other dopants; excitation processes of rare earth in wide band gap semiconductors, formation dynamics of single crystals in glass (Dierolf). For Defects in semiconductors, current interest is in defect complexes that contain light- element impurities such as H, C, O, and N, where vibrational spectroscopy and uniaxial stress techniques are used to elucidate microscopic properties (Stavola, Fowler). Other topics include Raman and neutron scattering, dielectric and ultrasonic spectroscopies, collective vibrational dynamics of disordered ferroelectrics and glasses (Toulouse).
Theory: Novel two-dimensional layered materials and their hybrids, heterostructures, and interfaces; Electronic and related properties of bulk semiconductors and insulators; Impurities and defects in materials including their interplay in strongly correlated materials/systems; The physics of carrier localization in model systems and real materials (Ekuma). Topological condensed matter physics, superconductivity, classical and quantum phase transition in strongly correlated and disordered systems, and field theory (Roy).