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Physics & Astronomy

Department Information

Peter A. Dowben Charles Bessey Professor, Physics & Astronomy/          Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience E-mail: PDOWBEN1@unl.edu Fax: (402) 472-6148 Office: JH 310L Phone: (402) 472-9838 Biographical Summary Research Interests and Capabilities Research Projects Other Links Publication Record Recent Results and Key References Graduate Students (and current affiliations) Post-doc's (and current affiliations)   Biographical Summary: 2002 - present: Charles Bessey Professor, University of Nebraska 1995 - present: Professor of Physics and Graduate Fellow, University of Nebraska 1994 - present: Research Professor of Chemistry, University of Nebraska 1993 - 1995: Associate Prof. of Physics and Graduate Fellow, University of Nebraska 1990 - 1993: Associate Prof. of Physics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 1987 - 1996: Adjunct Prof. of Chemistry, Syracuse University, 1986 - 1993: Member of Solid State Science and Technology Program, Syracuse     University 1984 - 1990: Assistant Prof. of Physics, Syracuse University 1981 - 1983: Scientist with the Fritz-Haber Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, FRG 1981 - Visiting Scientist to the Department of Physics, University Osnabrueck, FRG 1980 - 1981: Research Assistant to Dr. M. Grunze, Fritz-Haber Institut der Max-Planck     Gesellschaft, and the Free University, Berlin, FRG 1981 - Ph.D. in Physics, Cambridge University Research: Group Personnel Juan Colon-Santana Keisuke Fukutani Yaroslav Ketsman Lingmei Kong Ning Wu Xin Zhang  Collaborators at UNL Kirill Belashchenko (Physics) Christian Binek (Physics) Barry Cheung (Chemistry) Axel Enders (Physics) Alexei Gruverman (Physics) Rebecca Lai (Chemistry) Yaroslov Losovyj (Physics) Wai-Ning Mei (Physics) Renat Sabirianov (Physics R. Skomski (Physics) Andre Sokolov (Physics) James Takacs (Chemistry) Li Tan (Engineering) Evgeny Tsymbal (Physics) Interests and Capabilities: The major focus of the Dowben group emphasizes the changes in electronic (band) structure across electronic phase transitions in reduced dimensionality. Of interest are ferromagnetism in local moment systems or spatially restricted systems, ferroelectricity and the nonmetal to metal transition. Specific techniques include angle-resolved photoemission, resonant photoemission, inverse photoemission and spin polarized inverse photoemission. Other techniques include spin polarized photoemission, characteristic energy loss, low energy electron diffraction, angle resolved thermal desorption spectroscopy, X-ray photoemission, and Magneto-optic Kerr effect.   Research Projects: (1) Organic and Photolytic organometallic chemical vapor deposition of materials in ultrahigh vacuum for spin valves and spin-tunnel junctions. (2) Orientation, bonding and electronic structure of organic overlayers, organometallic molecular overlayers and molecular magnets. (3) The temperature dependent electronic structure of ferroelectric crystalline molecular films, as a function of metallicity. (4) The spin polarized occupied and unoccupied band structure of local moment ferromagnetic systems as a function of temperature. Funded by the NSF-Chem., NSF Quantum and Spin MRSEC (DMR-0213808), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Semiconductor Research Corporation and the Nebraska Research Initiative Other Links: Surface Science: www.chem.qmw.ac.uk/surfaces/ www.vacuum.org www.iap.tuwein.ac.at/~werner/data.html www.lasurface.com/accueil/index.php www.chem.unt.edu/research/centers/ssl/index.html Nanodots and Clusters: (Ward Plummer) www.phys.utk.edu/WPWebSite/ewp_main.htm http://cluster-science.net/service.php www.salford.ac.uk/chemist/nmbres.html www.cnms.ornl.gov/ www.mrsec.unl.edu Synchrotron Light Sources: (SRC) www.src.wisc.edu/ (CAMD) www.camd.lsu.edu/ (NSLS) www.nsls.bnl.gov/ (BESSY) www.bessy.de/ Rare Earth Magnetism: www.wspc.com.sg/books/physics/3851.html (Berlin) orion.physik.hu-Berlin.de Boron Carbide Neutron Detectors: http://www.amazings.com/ciencia/noticias/300702b.html http://www.engr.unl.edu/FINDER/research/index.htm Graphene http://iopscience.iop.org/0953-8984/labtalk-article/45265 Publication Record: Author of more than 450 articles in refereed journals and books, 25 invited review articles, 24 invited presentations at national and international conferences, and 14 patents. Some papers may be found on the digital commons: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/physicsdowben   Recent Results and Key References: Limits to Half Metallic Ferromagnetism: P.A. Dowben, J. Phys. Cond. Matter 19 (2007) 31031, and the papers that follow in that issue of JPCM. R. Skomski and P.A. Dowben, "Intra-Atomic Aspects of Magnon-Plasmon Interactions", J. Appl. Phys. 99 (2006), 08F508. P.A. Dowben and S.J. Jenkins. "The Limits to Spin-Polarization in Finite-Temperature Half- Metallic Ferromagnets", in Frontiers in Magnetic Materials, edited by Anant Narlikar, Springer Verlag (2005). N.Wu, P. A. Dowben, "Magnetic Surface States in High Polarization Materials", Spintronics IV, edited by H. Drouhin, J. Wegrowe, M. Razeghi, Proc. of SPIE Vol. 8100 (2011) 81000T. P.A. Dowben and R. Skomski, "Are Half-Metallic Ferromagnets Half-Metals? (invited)", Journal of Applied Physics 95 (2004) 7453-7458. Electrostatic Dipolar Coupling on the Local Scale: P.A. Dowben, Luis G. Rosa, Carolina C. Ilie, and Jie Xiao, "Adsorbate/Absorbate Interactions with Organic Ferroelectric Polymers", J. Electron Spectroscopy and Related Phenomena 174 (2009) 10-21. Z. Zhang, J. Alvira, X. Barbosa, L. B. Rosa, L. Routaboul, P. Braunstein, B. Doudin, P. A. Dowben, "Lock and Key Absorption Chemistry: Preferential Abstorption of an Isomer of Di-Iodobenzene on Molecular Films of Quinonoid Zitterions", J. Physical Chemistry C 115 (2011) 2812-2818. Z. Zhang, R. Gonzalez, G. Diaz, L. G. Rosa, I. Ketsman, X. Zhang, P. Sharma, A. Gruverman, P. A. Dowben, "Polarization Mediated Chemistry on Polymer Ferroelectric Surfaces", J. Phys. Chem. C 115 (2011) 13041-13046. L. Kong, F. Chesneau, Z. Zhang, F. Staier, A. Terfort, P. A. Dowben and M. Zharnikov, "The Electronic Structure of Aromatic Monomolecular Films - The Effect of Molecular Spacers and Interfacial Dipoles", J. Phys Chemistry C 115 (2011) 22422-22428. Recent General Papers on Surface & Interface Magnetism: Xi He, Yi Wang, Ning Wu, Anthony N. Caruso, Elio Vescovo, Kirill D. Belashchenko, Peter A. Dowben and Christian Binek, "Robusti Isothermal Electric Control of Exchange Bias at Room Temperature", Nature Materials 9 (2010) 579-585. Ning Wu, R.F. Sabirianov, W.N. Mei, Ya.B. Losovyj, N. Lozova, M. Manno, C. Leighton, and P.A. Dowben, "The Minority Spin Surface Bands of CoS2(001)", J. Phys. Cond. Matter 21 (2009) 295501. J.P. Velev, P.A. Dowben, E.Y. Tsymbal, S.J. Jenkins and A.N. Caruso, "Interface Effects in Spin-Polarized Metal/Insulator Layered Structures", Surface Science Reports 63 (2008) 400-425. Chun-gang Duan, R.F. Sabiryanov, Jianjun Liu, W.N. Mei, P.A. Dowben and J.R. Hardy, "Strain Induced Half Metal to Semiconductor Transition in GdN", Physical Review Letters 94 (2005) 237201.   Graduate Students (and current affiliations): NAME Degree Date Current Affiliation Daniel C. Driscoll Ph.D. 1987 Naval Surface Warfare Center, Virginia Hans-Jorg Ruppender Dipl. Chem. 1987 CEO Omnivac, Kaiserslautern, FRG Greg T. Stauf Ph.D. 1988 Staff, eMagin, Fishkill, NY Sangramitra Baral M. Sc. 1990 NRL Shikha Varma Ph.D. 1990 Associate Professor of Physics, Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, India David LaGraffe Ph.D. 1990 Deputy Office Director, NA-221, Col. (Army) National Nuclear Security Administration Yolanda Kime Ph.D. 1991 S.U.N.Y-Cortland, Professor Emeritus John Mazurowski M.Sc. 1992 Senior Engineer, Pennsylvania State Univ. Electro-Optic Cntr. http://www.electro-optics.org Yoon-Gi Kim Ph.D. 1992 Samsung Electronics, South Korea Sunwoo Lee Ph.D. 1992 Patent Law, Washington D.C. Dongqi Li Ph.D. 1993 On disability leave Jiandi Zhang Ph.D. 1994 Professor of Physics, Louisiana State University NSF Highlight Dongjin Byun Ph.D. 1995 Professor, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea University Seong-Don Hwang Ph.D. 1996 Patent Lawyer, Seoul, Korea John Kushneir III M.Sc. 1996 Leybold-Inficon, East Syracuse Tara Jean McAvoy M.Sc. 1997 Process Engineer with Raytheon, California Dulip Welipitiya Ph.D. 1997 TDK/Headway, San Jose, CA Carlo Waldfried Ph.D. 1998 Axcelis Jaewu Choi Ph.D. 1998 Associate Professor, Dept. of Information Display, Kyung Hee University, Korea Delia Ristoiu Ph.D. 2000 ST-Microelectronics, Grenoble, France Hanni Dulli Ph.D. 2000 Director of Undergraduate Physics Laboratories at Texas Tech University Camelia Borca Ph.D. 2001 Staff, Paul Scherrer Institute Laeticia Bernard Diplom Physiker 2002 Staff, Paul Scherrer Institute Rui-Hua Cheng Ph.D. 2002 Assistant Professor, Indiana University - Purdue - Indianapolis Takashi Komesu Ph.D. 2002 Staff, Spring 8, Japan Bo Xu Ph.D. 2002 Assistant Professor of Physics, Yanjing University Hae-Kyung Jeong Ph.D. 2003 Assistant Professor, Daegu University Anthony Caruso Ph.D. 2004 Associate Professor, Univ. of Missouri - Kansas City Luis Rosa Ph.D. 2005 Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Puerto Rico - Humacao Snow Balaz M.Sc. 2005 (Ph.D. in Engineering with J. Brand, 2007) Post-doc., Department of Physics, Ohio State University Danqin Feng Ph.D. 2007 Post-doc., Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara Carolina Ilie Ph.D. 2008 Assistant Professor of Physics, S.U.N.Y. - Oswego David Wisbey Ph.D. 2008 Assistant Professor of Physics, St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO Jie Xiao Ph.D. 2009 Post-doc., University of Erlangen Ning Wu Ph.D. 2009 Post-doc., U. Nebraska David Wooten Ph.D. 2010 Staff, STRATCOM Jing Liu Ph.D. 2011 CAMD, Louisiana State University ZhengZheng Zhang Ph.D. 2011 University of Missouri - Columbia Post-doc's (and current affiliations): NAME Date(s) Worked For Dowben Current Affiliation David McIlroy 1993-1996 Professor of Physics, University of Idaho Jiandi Zhang 1994-1995 Professor of Physics, Louisiana State University NSF Highlight Zhenchen Zhong 1997-1999 JQM Magnetic Systems, China Jaewu Choi 1998-2001 Chair, Dept. of Information Display, Kyung Hee University, Korea Hae-Kyung Jeong 2003-2004 Research Prof., Sungkyunkwan University Takashi Komesu 2007 Staff, Spring 8, Japan Ihor Ketsman 2006 - 2011   Jie Xiao 2009 - 2010 University of Erlangen Ning Wu 2009 - present