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Research Spotlight: Physics

Our research focuses on materials physics and utilizes a wide range of experimental, analytical, and computational techniques. Experimentalists conduct research on surface physics and thin films, diffusion measurements and NMR in polymers and solid-state physics. Theoretical projects include critical phenomena and phase transitions, renormalization group theory, supersymmetry, fluid dynamics, polymer, semiconductor and solid-state physics.

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There is a large array of experimental equipment and instrumentation available in the department:

  • FTIR spectroscopy
  • UV spectroscopy
  • Low energy electron diffraction spectroscopy
  • High- and ultra-high vacuum equipment for thin-film deposition
  • Inelastic Electron Tunneling Spectroscopy (IETS)
  • Facilities to fabricate and characterize ferroelectric and
  • High temperature superconductor materials.


Several faculty members have clusters of computer workstations to perform computational research. This includes

  • Equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of complex fluids including polymers
  • Atomic scale and coarse-grained modeling
  • Nanotechnology
  • Phase transitions and critical phenomena in polymers
  • Frictional drag in coupled electronic bilayers
  • Transport in mesoscopic and nanoscopic systems

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