Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases that arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms and electrons. More generally, the subject deals with condensed phases of matter: systems of many constituents with strong interactions among them. More exotic condensed phases include the superconducting phase exhibited by certain materials at extremely low cryogenic temperatures, the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic phases of spins on crystal lattices of atoms, the Bose–Einstein condensates found in ultracold atomic systems, and liquid crystals. Condensed matter physicists seek to understand the behavior of these phases by experiments to measure various material properties, and by applying the physical laws of quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, statistical mechanics, and other physics theories to develop mathematical models and predict the properties of extremely large groups of atoms.
Physics is the natural science of matter, involving the study of matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, with its main goal being to understand how the universe behaves. A scientist who specializes in the field of physics is called a physicist.
Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the scale of protons and neutrons, while the study of combination of protons and neutrons is called nuclear physics.
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that describes the behavior of nature at and below the scale of atoms. It is the foundation of all quantum physics, which includes quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science.
Supersymmetry is a theoretical framework in physics that suggests the existence of a symmetry between particles with integer spin (bosons) and particles with half-integer spin (fermions). It proposes that for every known particle, there exists a partner particle with different spin properties. There have been multiple experiments on supersymmetry that have failed to provide evidence that it exists in nature. If evidence is found, supersymmetry could help explain certain phenomena, such as the nature of dark matter and the hierarchy problem in particle physics.
Charles Henry Bennett is a physicist, information theorist and IBM Fellow at IBM Research. Bennett's recent work at IBM has concentrated on a re-examination of the physical basis of information, applying quantum physics to the problems surrounding information exchange. He has played a major role in elucidating the interconnections between physics and information, particularly in the realm of quantum computation, but also in cellular automata and reversible computing. He discovered, with Gilles Brassard, the concept of quantum cryptography and is one of the founding fathers of modern quantum information theory.
Anthony Zee is a Chinese-American physicist, writer, and a professor at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and the physics department of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Ferenc Krausz is an Austrian-Hungarian physicist working in attosecond science. He is a director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and a professor of experimental physics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany. His research team has generated and measured the first attosecond light pulse and used it for capturing electrons' motion inside atoms, marking the birth of attophysics. In 2023, jointly with Pierre Agostini and Anne L'Huillier, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics (SITP) is a research institute within the Physics Department at Stanford University. Led by 16 physics faculty members, the institute conducts research in high energy and condensed matter theoretical physics.
Juan Ignacio Cirac Sasturain, known professionally as Ignacio Cirac, is a Spanish physicist. He is one of the pioneers of the field of quantum computing and quantum information theory. He is the recipient of the 2006 Prince of Asturias Award in technical and scientific research.
Paul Bruce Corkum is a Canadian physicist specializing in attosecond physics and laser science. He holds a joint University of Ottawa–NRC chair in attosecond photonics. He also holds academic positions at Texas A&M University and the University of New Mexico. Corkum is both a theorist and an experimentalist.
The Nevill Mott Medal and Prize is an award presented in selected years by the Institute of Physics in the United Kingdom, for distinguished research in condensed matter or materials physics. It was first established in 1997 thanks to a donation from Sir Nevill Mott's family. Sir Nevill Mott was one of the outstanding British condensed matter theorists and won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977. He died in 1996. The award consists of a silver medal and a prize of £1000.
Steven H. Simon is an American theoretical physics professor at Oxford University and professorial fellow of Somerville College, Oxford. From 2000 to 2008 he was the director of theoretical physics research at Bell Laboratories. He has served on the UK EPSRC Physical Sciences Strategic Advisory Board. He is known for his work on topological phases of matter, topological quantum computing, and fractional quantum Hall effect. He is a co-author of a highly cited review on these subjects. He has also written many papers in the field of information theory. He is the author of a popular introductory book on solid state physics entitled The Oxford Solid State Basics as well as a more recent book entitled Topological Quantum. He is married to political science professor Janina Dill.
Steven M. Girvin is an American physicist who is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics at Yale University and who served as deputy provost for research at Yale from 2007 to 2017. Girvin is noted for his theoretical work on quantum many body systems such as the fractional quantum Hall effect, and as co-developer of circuit QED, the application of the ideas of quantum optics to superconducting microwave circuits. Circuit QED is now the leading architecture for construction of quantum computers based on superconducting qubits.
Shoucheng Zhang was a Chinese-American physicist who was the JG Jackson and CJ Wood professor of physics at Stanford University. He was a condensed matter theorist known for his work on topological insulators, the quantum Hall effect, the quantum spin Hall effect, spintronics, and high-temperature superconductivity. According to the National Academy of Sciences:
He discovered a new state of matter called topological insulator in which electrons can conduct along the edge without dissipation, enabling a new generation of electronic devices with much lower power consumption. For this ground breaking work he received numerous international awards, including the Buckley Prize, the Dirac Medal and Prize, the Europhysics Prize, the Physics Frontiers Prize and the Benjamin Franklin Medal.
Jun Ye is a Chinese-American physicist at JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the University of Colorado Boulder, working primarily in the field of atomic, molecular, and optical physics.
Quantum materials is an umbrella term in condensed matter physics that encompasses all materials whose essential properties cannot be described in terms of semiclassical particles and low-level quantum mechanics. These are materials that present strong electronic correlations or some type of electronic order, such as superconducting or magnetic orders, or materials whose electronic properties are linked to non-generic quantum effects – topological insulators, Dirac electron systems such as graphene, as well as systems whose collective properties are governed by genuinely quantum behavior, such as ultra-cold atoms, cold excitons, polaritons, and so forth. On the microscopic level, four fundamental degrees of freedom – that of charge, spin, orbit and lattice – become intertwined, resulting in complex electronic states; the concept of emergence is a common thread in the study of quantum materials.
National Center for Theoretical Sciences (NCTS) in Taiwan was established on August 1, 1997 and fully funded by the National Science Council (NSC), which is reorganized and became Ministry of Science and Technology (Taiwan) (MoST) in 2014, with strong endorsement from some of the most eminent scholars, including Yang Chen-Ning and Shing-Tung Yau. It is a national research center with the goal to contribute to the advancement of frontier research, and to promote interdisciplinary and international research cooperation in theoretical sciences.
Eugene John "Gene" Mele is a professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania, where he researches quantum electric phenomena in condensed matter.
Xie Chen is a Chinese physicist and a professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology. Her work covers both the field of condensed matter physics and quantum information, with a focus on many-body quantum mechanical systems with unconventional emergent phenomena. She won the 2020 New Horizons in Physics Prize for "incisive contributions to the understanding of topological states of matter and the relationships between them"
