There is an enormous range of phenomena in interacting systems which Condensed-Matter scientists consider worthy of attention. Interest and experimental research activities in this department range from nonlinear physics and fluid turbulence, to excitonic condensation in semiconductors, to domain wall kinetics, to materials physics, and to surface science. Theoretical research has an equally impressive range, from dissipation in quantum systems, to disordered systems, to pattern forming dynamics, and to the behavior of complex fluids. There are many ongoing collaborations with chemistry, life sciences, and engineering.
Graduate students participate at all levels of equipment construction, data taking, and analysis.
Typically, students carry out this type of research work in our departmental laboratories. Semiconductor and other solid-state research takes a variety of forms. Excitons are created using intense picosecond laser pulses, and the evolution of their momentum and spatial distributions are detected via fast optics and time-correlated photon counting. Snoke also collaborates with the University's Biotechnology Center on imaging research. Current interests include band structure properties, the electronic and vibrational properties of shallow and deep impurities and defects, and the effects of ion implantation.