Theoretical calculations are done to explain and predict the optical and transport properties of solids. Most calculations employ Green's functions and many-body theory, although numerical simulations are also performed.
Topics span the range of esoteric to applied.
Among the applied projects are efforts to engineer new thermoelectric materials. We are also modeling the transport of photons in human tissue. Here the goal is to use diffuse light, along with another probe, to image cancer. We also provided the first correct calculation of the temperature dependence of the exchange and correlation energy of an electron gas. Mini Vita Gerald D. Mahan , earned an A.B. degree from Harvard in 1959 and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1964.