Materials Science

    Dr. Robert Boughton studies electron transport properties in metals, semiconductors and superconductors, over a temperature range that covers room temperature down to 1 degree Kelvin. The special interest in the high critical temperature ceramic superconductors includes studies of joining techniques, proximity effects and magnetic field characteristics. The low temperature materials lab contains a number of sensitive voltmeters, including a radio frequency SQUID. Three cryostats are available for use in making these measurements.

    Dr. Bruno Ullrich is working on semiconductor device fabrication and characterization, using both inorganic (II-VI) and organic materials. The semiconductors are deposited using pulsed laser deposition, spin coating, evaporation and similar techniques. Samples are analyzed via photon spectroscopy with cw lasers, ultrafast lasers, and monochromatic light from Xenon and Tungsten light sources. Dr. Ullrich also employs modulation spectroscopy for lifetime and carrier dynamics experiments. Read more about his work at http://kottan-labs.bgsu.edu/.

    Dr. Mikhail Zamkov's research focuses on the electronic, chemical and optical properties of hybrid nanoscale materials prepared with sub-nanometer precision by means of colloidal syntheses. Such semiconductor or metal nanoparticles can be chemically manipulated like large molecules and can be coupled to each other or can be incorporated into different types of inorganic or organic matrices. The ease of manipulating both the dimensions of the individual particles as well as their arrangement in a complex interacting structure makes colloidal nanostructures well-suited for studies of size/structure-dependent quantum-mechanical interactions and as ideal building blocks for nanoscale engineering.

Specifically, experimental work in Dr. Zamkov's group addresses four major areas: (1) synthesis and characterization of novel nanoscale building blocks, (2) elucidation of their fundamental optoelectronic properties, (3) design and demonstration of functional nanoscale devices and integrated nanosystems, and (4) exploration of the interface/communication between biological systems and nanoscale devices. This research by is highly interdisciplinary, involving concepts and techniques from biology, chemistry, physics and the engineering sciences to achieve their goals.