Much of modern life depends on the myriad ways in which we can use materials, for example in electronics, lasers, communications, data storage, sensors, and energy conversion. This requires us to understand the physics and chemistry of materials at length scales down to those of the atom, and this is the challenge being tackled by the Centre for Condensed Matter and Materials Physics.
Broadly, we classify our work under five headings: Functional materials, Local structure, Materials for nuclear energy, nanoscale materials and organic semiconductors. More detailed information is available for each of these areas.
The challenge of understanding materials requires a multi-faceted approach, and in particularly involving a wide mixture of experimental methods and computer simulation techniques. The Centre has a set of laboratories with a wide range of equipment to support all the key areas of research. In addition, we make good use of central facilities in our experimental programme (neutron, muon and synchrotron beams). The experimental work is complemented by atomistic simulations using a wide range of techniques.