Condensed Matter

Overview

Condensed Matter physicists study matter in its nearly unlimited variety of condensed states from liquids to crystalline solids, from thin films to fabricated or chemically-synthesized nanostructures, from quantum Hall electron gases to superconductors, from carbon nanotubes to liquid crystals, and from amorphous structures to complex fluids. We seek both to clarify the fundamental issues behind the striking properties of these systems, and to illuminate their potential for useful application in many areas from electronics to biology and medicine. Condensed matter physics underlies many key devices of information technology, including the transistor, the solid-state laser, optical fiber, magnetic storage media, the liquid crystal display. The Condensed Matter research at Penn is organized around three broadly defined groups: Quantum Matter, Soft Matter and Living Matter.

Quantum Matter

The Penn Quantum Matter group seeks to understand quantum states of condensed matter with a focus on using them to propagate charge, energy and information. Our activities combine theoretical analysis and model building, experimental synthesis of high-quality materials, and transport and optical studies to demonstrate novel phenomena in solid-state materials and explore their real-life applications. A special interest at Penn is on topological phases of matter as exemplified by the theoretical discovery of classes of time reversal invariant topological materials. The Penn (hard) CM group has enjoyed a long tradition of close collaboration between theorists and experimentalists within the Department and in the broader materials communityat Penn.

Soft Matter

Soft matter physics encompasses the study of collective phenomena in many-body systems in which quantum mechanics does not play an explicit role. As befits a subfield of condensed matter physics, the overarching intellectual challenge is to understand the connection between microscopic properties and collective, macroscopic behavior. The intellectual territory spanned by soft matter is vast in its reach. It covers the range of length scales from nanometer-sized liquid crystals or particles to geological features such as craters and glaciers.

Living Matter

Living matter can no longer be considered merely an interface topic between physics and biology but has emerged as a new branch of physics. The phenomena of life pose challenges to our understanding of strongly-correlated many-body systems that range far beyond those typically encountered in non-living systems. To improve the ability of organisms to survive, interactions among the many components comprising living systems have been tuned by the process of evolution to lead to biological functions of great specificity, precision and complexity that are unmatched by properties of human-made materials. This poses fundamentally new physics questions.

Related Faculty

Related Faculty

Cathy and Marc Lasry Professor

Assistant Professor

Fay R. and Eugene L. Langberg Professor of Physics

Mary Amanda Wood Professor of Physics and Astronomy

Charles and William L. Day Distinguished Professor in the Natural Sciences

Rebecca W. Bushnell Professor of Physics and Astronomy

Vicki and William Abrams Professor in the Natural Sciences

Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Physics

Associate Professor and Undergraduate Affairs Chair

Professor

Hepburn Professor of Physics

Assistant Professor

Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Physics

Professor

Assistant Professor

James M. Skinner Professor of Science and Department Chair

Associate Professor

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