He is actively involved in numerous department committees including secretary of the College of Engineering Executive Committee. A key element is the effect of strains induced by epitaxy on the magnetic phase diagram. Magnetic susceptibility, neutron scattering, and x-ray diffraction methods are used. Certain manganese oxides, when doped, exhibit remarkable changes in electrical resistance at the ferromagnetic transition temperature. These changes are sensitive to magnetic fields, causing colossal magnetoresistance.
Recent work focuses on the ferromagnetic state and the nature of the transition to it.
The conductivity, thermoelectric power, and possibly the Hall coefficient can be treated in the regime near Tc in terms of two-phase behavior involving polaris and baud electrons. Our research focuses on efforts to study that transition further through continuing studies of the low-temperature thermal conductivity, superconducting penetration depth, and heat capacity. Further studies of the d-wave nature of the superconducting state are underway, including predictions of a dependence of the heat capacity on the orientation of a magnetic field. In an unrelated experiment, we are attempting to detect the presence of the vortex lattice using resonant x-ray scattering. Specifically, we are studying the noise characteristics of trilayer junctions that exhibit spin-dependent tunneling and examining the distribution of magnetic material in the structures by means of neutron reflectometry.