My research concerns the electronic and magnetic properties of materials under extreme conditions. By achieving temperatures near absolute zero (down to 0.3 K), applying large pressures (in excess of 1 million times atmospheric pressure), and generating intense magnetic fields (200,000 times the earth's magnetic field), I can understand correlated-electron and geometrically frustrated materials and test various scientific theories to a degree few others can. This will lead to a better understanding of complex systems and could lead to the discovery of new technologically useful materials.
Correlated-electron systems are so named due to strong interactions between electrons unlike traditional metals (e.g. copper) that have free electrons that interact very weakly. The use of high pressure, high magnetic fields, and chemical substitution to alter the electron-electron (hybridization) interactions can suppress long range magnetic order that terminates at a quantum critical point (QCP). Near the QCP, a variety of exotic behavior is observed including: short range magnetic order, non-Fermi liquid (NFL) behavior, heavy fermion behavior and superconductivity.
Materials containing antiferromagnetically coupled magnetic moments which reside on geometrical units, such as triangles, that inhibit the formation of a collinear ordered state, often display phenomena known broadly as geometrical frustration. This frustration is due to the incompatibility of the local lattice symmetry with the symmetry of the magnetic interactions. A classic example is the inability to arrange antiferromagnetic (AF) Ising spin 1/2 spins on a triangular lattice is such a way to satisfy an AF configuration for all spins. As geometrically frustrated magnets are ideal models for complex phenomena ranging from protein folding to nuclear fragmentation to financial systems, studies on frustrated magnets allows an experimental probe of extremely complex models.