Robert J. Birgeneau
University of California, Berkeley
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Primary Section: 33, Applied Physical Sciences Secondary Section: 13, Physics Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2004)
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Research Interests
I am a condensed matter physicist who carries out experiments on a variety of different solid and liquid crystal systems. Our primary experimental methods are neutron and synchrotron x-ray scattering. We typically synthesize our own materials and characterize their macroscopic properties with standard techniques. Our focus historically has been on complex materials whose properties are determined in a fundamental way by the effects of dimensionality, quantum fluctuations and/or microscopic quenched disorder. Two systems which we are currently exploring are high temperature superconductors and smectic liquid crystals embedded in dilute silica gel networks. The former is a well researched problem which nevertheless is proving to be remarkably difficult to unravel at a fundamental level. Our own emphasis has been on the microscopic antiferromagnetic fluctuations and their interaction with the superconductivity. The latter represents a new area of research in which disorder and dimensionality effects play a central role. We are currently trying to gather enough basic empirical information to be able to elucidate the fundamental principles which determine the properties of these novel gels.
