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Cavendish Laboratory
Snapshot
• 100 – 120 MSci (4-year) undergraduates annually
• 60 – 70 PhD’s annually
• ~ 150 postdocs and research staff
• 65 teaching faculty (+ 8 to be appointed in next 2
years)
• £14M annual research grant expenditure
• Institute of Astronomy – ~20 faculty, 50 graduate
students, 50 postdocs
The Cavendish Laboratory –
Research organisation
• High Energy Physics
• Astrophysics
• Biological and Soft Systems
• Semiconductor Physics
• Optoelectronics and Microelectronics
• Quantum Matter
• Materials Physics
• Theory of Condensed Matter
• Quantum optics and atomic physics
Major Initiatives
• Nanoscience Centre (2003)
£20 M interdisciplinary centre involving Engineering,
Physics, Materials, Biological Physics.
• Physics of medicine
Have secured £12.5M funding for phased construction
of new research laboratories for completion in 2008
2 new lecturers hired
New Herchel Smith professor …
Major Initiatives
• Kavli Institute for Cosmology
New institute drawing on Cavendish, Institute
of Astronomy, and Dept Applied Maths and
Theoretical Physics
• Quantum Optics
New experimental programmes in ultracold
atomic physics, and in semiconductor
quantum optics (2 lecturers, reader)
Challenges in Quantum Matter
• Collective quantum behaviour gives rise to many
unusual (and useful) phenomena:
magnetism, superconductivity, superfluidity, optical coherence and
lasing, quantum Hall effects,
• Study models and potentially applicable systems
systems made by both chemistry (e.g. cuprates, manganites,
heavy fermions) and physics (e.g. quantum wells, optical
lattices)
extreme conditions useful (B,T,P)
• Convergence of research in materials science,
condensed matter physics, atomic physics, and quantum
optics
• Goals:
– materials for new technologies (e.g. multiferroics)
– “coherent control” of macroscopic quantum phenomena
Cavendish research in
quantum matter
• Quantum Matter group
– low temperature physics, superconductivity,
magnetism, strongly correlated electronic systems
• Theory of Condensed Matter group
– numerical electronic structure methods, many
body physics, quantum transport,
overlap with research activities in Semiconductor
Physics, Optoelectronics, and Quantum
Optics.
A solid state Bose-Einstein condensate
Momentum distribution of cold atoms
Momentum distribution of cold exciton-polaritons
Rb atom condensate, JILA, Colorado
Nature, Sept 28 2006,
Unconventional
superconductivity
• “high-Tc” cuprates, heavy fermion
compounds, intercalated graphite
• exciton and exciton-polariton Bose-Einstein
condensation
• coherent magnetic state in BaCuSiO
• ultracold atomic superfluids 6Li, 40K, with
tunable interactions
• bilayer quantum Hall effect
Electronic “soft” matter
Defects in nematic liquid crystal
“Pure” phases of matter can
have complex structure
“Stripes” of charge-density wave in TaSe2
100 nm
C.H.Chen
30 nm patches of charge-order in LaCaMnO3
Loudon & Midgley
Competing phases
• How do phase transitions happen at T=0 ?
– quantum critical phenomena
• Often competition between two phases
generates new thermodynamic mixed phases
– “Colossal” magneto-resistance in manganites is a
result of competition between metallic
ferromagnetism and insulating charge order
– Spontaneous development of inhomogeneous
magnetism and metallicity
CKC
Look for collaborative opportunities where
there are common interests and
complementary skills / techniques
Focus on novel electronic materials with
special functionality, studied at low T,
possibly high B, P