CONDENSED MATTER & MATERIALS PHYSICS

The CMMP group offers one of the most exciting environments in the UK for graduate studies in condensed matter physics. Research within the group spans a wide spectrum of subjects including quantum computing, organic electronics, superconductivity, the physics of the Earth's deep interior, biomagnetism, nanoscale imaging, etc. Currently the group comprises 90 members, including 26 academic staff and over 50 Ph.D. students, making it one of the largest condensed matter groups in the UK. The group is located in the LCN and Physics buildings on the Bloomsbury campus. The LCN building is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities for the design, fabrication and analysis of nanoscale systems. In additional the group plays a leading role in the development and exploitation of x-ray and neutron scattering instruments at central facilities both national and international. The CMMP group has both theoretical and experimental components and is closely associated to the Thomas Young Centre for Theory and Simulation of Materials. For more information visit TYC@UCL.

The Elizabeth Spreadbury Lecture; Results from the Large Hadron Collider and what they mean by Professor Jon Butterworth (UCL, Head of Physics & Astronomy)

Wednesday 14th March, 16.30pm at the Harrie Massey LT

Things are moving very quickly at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, with new results coming in every week. Prof Butterworth will present a review of why the machine was built, what has been learned so far and what they hope to learn from the data eventually. This will include the status of the hunt for the Higgs boson, thought to be behind the electroweak symmetry breaking and the origin of mass.

UCL scientist goes from Lab Bench to Backbench

Dr Nguyen TK Thanh has taken part in a scheme where MPs and Civil Servants are paired up with leading scientists for a week at both their respective places of work [Read more]

Band alignment, built-in potential and the absence of conductivity at the LaCrO3/SrTiO3(001) heterojunction

In a recent paper in Physical Review Letters, Dr Peter Sushko, in collaboration with colleagues at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, have investigated properties of a polar/non-polar interface formed by LaCrO3 film grown on SrTiO3 substrate and found that there is, indeed, build up of electrostatic potential in the film but there is no interface conductivity [Read more]

Election to Fellowships of the American Physical Society

Professors Alex Shluger and Des McMorrow of the Group have been elected to a Fellowship in the American Physical Society [Read more]

Atom-resolved imaging of ordered defect superstructures at individual grain boundaries

In a recently published paper in Nature (479, 380-383), Prof Keith McKenna , Prof Alex Shluger and coworkers combined advanced electron microscopy techniques with theoretical simulations to unravel the structure of grain boundary defects in ceramics, with both atomic resolution and chemical sensitivity. The findings shed new light onto these universally important defects, and demonstrate that their structure can be much more complex than is often assumed [Read more].

The Harrie Massey Lecture: 23rd November 2011

Coherent Control of Single Molecules, Complexes and Nanoantennas
Niek. F. van Hulst
ICFO - Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, Castelldefels, Spain
ICREA - Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Barcelona
Date: Wednesday 23 November 2011, 16:00 to 17:30
Location: Wilkins Gustav Tuck Lecture Theatre 25 Gordon Street, WC1H 0AY. Wine reception to follow afterwards.

Bragg Lecture 2011: 26th October 2011

Speaker: Professor Henry Chapman (Center for Free-Electron Laser Science, DESY, Hamburg, Germany)
Imaging Macromolecules with X-ray free-electron laser pulses
Wednesday 26 October at 16:30 in the Harrie Massey Lecture Theatre, University College London, followed by light refreshments in E3/E7, Physics

Also a Bragg Seminar: Ptychography by Wigner-distribution deconvolution - 27th October 2011 11am in E3/E7 Physics

Evidence for Graphene-Sheet-Driven Superconducting State in Graphite Intercalation Compounds

In a recent paper in Physical Review Letters, researchers from the Brookhaven National Laboratory, in collaboration with the London Centre for Nanotechnology (Chris Howard and Mark Ellerby), have mapped the electronic structure of superconducting GIC, KC8 and non-superconducting LiC6. [read more]