The materials physics group is interested in the experimental investigation of electrical, magnetic and optical properties of solids, with special attention paid to those materials which have application in device technology.
In the opto-electronics lab, Dr. Yujie Ding studies the properties of non-linear optical materials, including nonlinear optical devices based cascaded resonant second-order nonlinearities, optoelectroic devices based on novel semiconductor structures, and carrier dynamics in semiconductors. These materials have applications as frequency doublers, frequency shifters, phase conjugate mirrors, optical parametric amplifiers, and intensity limiters. The opto-electronics lab contains a high-speed pulsed Ti:sapphire laser, capable of producing 50 kilowatts of power in the span of a few hundreds of femtoseconds.
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.
The computational physics group is interested in the application of the methods of computational physics to a wide variety of research areas. These include: