Department of Physics

Anderson, Phillip
Professor

Ionospheric and magnetospheric electrodynamics; space weather; space environment effects on human systems.

Cunningham, Austin
Professor and Dean of Graduate Studies

Research into collisional processes occurring in planetary atmospheres, governing gas laser operation, important in thin film plasma deposition, and determining the output of high intensity lamps.

Gartstein, Yuri
Associate Professor

Condensed matter physics with emphasis on nanoscience; electronic, optical and transport properties of organic materials.

Glosser, Robert
Professor and Department Head

Research interests relate to the study of optical properties of solids using techniques including Raman, photoluminescence and modulation spectroscopies. Materials of interest are semiconductors, biomaterials and nanomaterials.

Plasma processes and electrodynamics in planetary atmospheres and ionospheres; space flight instrumentation.

Ionospheric composition; mass spectroscopy; stratospheric cluster ion composition. Dr. Hoffman's research involves studies of planetary atmospheres, particularly the composition of the neutral and ionic constituents.

Theoretical cosmology and relativity. Gravitational lensing and its application to cosmology. The acceleration of the expansion of the universe: cosmological constant, dark energy, or modified gravity. Inhomogeneous cosmological models. Exact solution to Einstein's equations. Junction conditions for matching space-times and constructing wormholes and spacetime thin-shells, computer algebra (symbolic computing).

Experimental high energy particle physics exploring high energy proton collisions produced at CERN's Large Hadron Collider and electron-positron collisions at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) National Accelerator Laboratory. He is Principal Investigator for UT Dallas' High Energy Physics Group that works on the ATLAS and BaBar experiments.

My research interests are in physical cosmology and extragalactic astrophysics, including observational and theoretical studies of gravitational lensing. Currently, I'm especially interested in understanding how luminous and dark matter is distributed in galaxy clusters, the most massive bound objects in our universe. One aspect of this is studying the aftermath of the rare but spectacular collisions between galaxy clusters.

Computational and information systems to facilitate discovery and decision support in Earth System Science; Remote Sensing.

Condensed matter physics, novel electronic and optical materials, electronic and photonic devices.

Elementary particle physics experiments at electron-position colliders, high performance cluster computing, and application of data mining techniques to other fields of research

Dr. MacAlevey’s principal activity at UTD is teaching. Research interests focus on gravitational radiation.

• Molecular/cell science, sorting in microfluidic environments, using optical tweezers
• Photoluminescence spectroscopy of single semiconductor quantum dots
• Single photon sources and single photon correlation spectroscopy
• Femotosecond spectroscopy
• Non-linear optics and spectroscopy of quantum dots and other semiconductor materials
• Optical limiting devices, Nano-optics
• Solid state physics, Laser physics
• Fiber optics (hi-power fiber lasers & amplifiers)
• Optical engineering

A study on Equatorial Spread F in the earth’s ionosphere.

Rindler, Wolfgang
Professor

Theoretical relativistic cosmology and basic problems in general relativity.

Research on upper atmosphere, space physics, radio remote sensing of the upper atmosphere/ionosphere, ionospheric electrodynamics and irregularities, space weather.

Experimental condensed matter physics, phase transitions, superconductivity and the properties of magnetic materials. 

Organic optoelectronic devices for energy efficiency and novel biosensors for disease diagnostics and laboratory assays.

Airglow; aurora; theoretical research in aeronomy; instrumentation for atmospheric spectroscopy; observational and theoretical research on upper atmosphere processes (aeronomy) for more than 40 years, and has served on many national and international organizations in this field.

Zakhidov, Anvar
Professor, Associate Director of NanoTech Institute

Physics and chemistry of advanced materials: carbon nanotubes, fullerenes, theory of excitons, polarons, solitons in solids; optical and microwave spectroscopy; molecular superconductivity, ferromagnetism; conducting polymers electronic molecular devices.

Zhang, Chuanwei
Associate Professor

Prof. Zhang's research interests are in theoretical atomic physics and condensed matter physics. His research activities include ultra-cold atomic gases, physical implementation of quantum information in cold atomic and superconducting systems, quantum chaos, Berry phase and semiclassical wave packet dynamics, physics of strongly-correlated multiferroic materials, high temperature cuprate superconductivity, photonic crystals, and graphene.

His current research interests include:

1. Topological condensed matter physics
2. Ultra-cold atomic gases
3. Quantum computation

Chabal, Yves
Professor, Materials Science

Current interests are centered on surface chemical functionalization of semiconductor and oxide surfaces, atomic layer deposition, organic electronics, biosensors and H2 storage materials.

Cho, Kyeongjae
Materials Science

Computational materials science of nanomaterials and electronic device materials, carbon nanotubes and semiconductor nano wires for nanoelectronics, metal nanoparticles for catalyst design in renewable energy applications and interface modeling of high-k gate stack systems.

Polymeric organic semiconductors and intrinsic conductors; advanced lithographic resist materials.

Aspects of the search for alternative gate dielectrics for use in advanced CMOS devices, novel approaches to film growth and interfacial compatibility, remote plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition processes and areas of film characterization including AES, XPS, SIMS, RBS, C-V, J-V, FTIR, XAS and NRA.

Urquhart, Mary
Science/Mathematics Education

Thermal processes in planetary crustal materials with an emphasis on the lunar and martian surfaces; misconceptions and instructional design in astronomy and physics (Sci/Math Ed). NASA education and public outreach projects; member of the Center for Space Sciences.