Welcome to the homepage of Complex Collective Materials Phenomena Team. This team is a subgroup of Materials Theory Group at Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Our scientific mission is to study theoretically the emergence of complex collective phenomena in materials, including strongly correlated electrons in bulk compounds and nanostructures, using model Hamiltonians and non-perturbative techniques. Our current research is focused on:

  1. Analysis of novel bulk magnetic and superconducting phases, where phenomena such as high-temperature superconductivity, colossal magnetoresistance, magnetism in organic compounds, diluted magnetic semiconductors, and self-organization into inhomogeneous nanoscale patterns is addressed.
  2. Study of artificially created nanostructures, particularly involving oxide multi-layers, with emphasis on the phenomenon of electronic reconstruction at surfaces and interfaces, and on the prediction of novel functionalities.
  3. Study of dynamical properties of many-body systems using recently developed algorithms, addressing phenomena such as photo-excitations, Mott insulators breaking by strong electric fields, conductances of nanoscale objects, and spin-wave dynamics in heterostructures and bulk materials.

Our goals are related to experimental efforts at the ORNL Materials Science and Technology Division, and the SNS, HFIR, and CNMS user facilities. A key component of our projects is the theory visitor's program, to solidify interactions with other groups worldwide, bringing expertise to ORNL that is not currently available.