Physics

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190 Mathematics and Science Center • (248) 370-3416 • Fax (248) 370-3408   (map)
www.oakland.edu/physics

Chair:
Andrei N. Slavin
186G Mathematics and Science Center
(248) 370-3401
slavin@oakland.edu

Research fields and facilities

The Department of Physics faculty are currently involved in research in the following broad areas: biophysics and medical physics, condensed matter physics theory and experiment, and gravitational physics theory. Specifically, the biophysics and medical physics group has been studying and developing therapies for the treatment of neural injury and neurodegenerative diseases and brain tumors, the biophysics and biomechanics of osteoarthritis, cardiac electrophysiology, and the invasion and clustering of cancer cells. Methods and tools employed in these studies include NMR imaging, NMR microscopy, multi-modality microscopic imaging, in vivo NMR spectroscopy, neuromagnetism, two-photon laser scanning confocal microscopy, laser-capture microscopy, time-lapse microscopy, electron microscopy, and advanced molecular biological methods and mathematical analyses. The condensed matter physics group conducts theoretical studies of the linear and nonlinear dynamics of spin waves and phenomena associated with phase transitions and experiments on magnetic properties of technologically useful materials, optical properties of semiconductors and carbon nanotubes under high pressure, instabilities and pattern formation in granular matter, front propagation in biological systems, and crystal growth of diamond films and silicon ribbons. The gravitational theory group’s research centers on critical phenomena, chaos, and the nature of generic singularities in Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Research facilities in the high pressure optics laboratory include Raman spectrometers with single or multi-channel detectors, facilities for photoluminescence studies in the visible and infrared regions, argon ion and Ti: sapphire lasers, high pressure cells capable of generating 10 GPa, and closed cycle helium refrigerators. Research facilities in the condensed matter physics laboratories include a Magneto-optical Kerr Effect spectroscopy, fiber optics Kerr spectroscopy, low-noise probe station, Faraday Magnetometer, an AC susceptometer, a ferromagnetic resonance spectrometer at x-band, a scanning probe microscope, a scanning microwave microscope, vector network analyzers (1 kHz-110 GHz), a Philips x-ray diffractometer, one and two kilowatt RF power supplies with 50W matching networks for silicon ribbon growth, and vacuum facilities for thin film evaporation and fullerene preparation. Research facilities in the NMR microscopy laboratory include a Bruker AVANCE IIIHD 300 NMR spectrometer with a 7-Tesla/89-mm bore superconducting magnet and micro-imaging accessories, PerkinElmer Spotlight 300 Fourier-transform infrared microscope, Leica polarized light microscope, Skyscan 1174 micro-CT scanner, and Endura TEC 3200 mechanical testing system. The department also has microwave device facilities in the frequency range from 100 kHz to 70 GHz. Supporting facilities include electronics and mechanical workshops staffed by experienced technical personnel. Computer facilities include a 200-node supercomputer cluster for high performance computing, plus a number of workstations, and numerous Macintosh and PC computers. Most research laboratories are located in the modern Mathematics and Science Center.

The Physics Department has two modern computer clusters, the newest one, funded through the NSF Major Research Instrumentation Program, is composed of 24 nodes containing two AMD Opteron 6136 “Magny-Cours” running at 2.4 GHz, with 8 cores and 64 GB RAM each, for a total of 384 cores and more than 1.5 TB of RAM. In addition, the two head nodes combined provide 18 TB of hard disk space. Both clusters are located in modern computer rooms at the Oakland Information Technology Center.

Among research facilities in neighboring hospitals available to medical physics students are a 3.0-Tesla whole-body NMR system and two 7.0-Telsa/20-cm horizontal bore magnet NMR systems for imaging and in vivo spectroscopy, a 7-channel SQUID magnetometer, a 148-channel whole-head SQUID neuromagnetometer, a Zeiss LSM 510 two photon microscope, Leica LMD 6000 laser microdissection system, Philips EM208 transmission electron microscope, a nuclear medicine laboratory, radiology and CT scanning facilities, advanced modalities cancer therapy laboratory (including radiotherapy), diagnostic ultrasonic equipment, a laser surgery laboratory, and major hospital medical libraries.

Programs

• Applied and Computational Physics, Doctor of Philosophy
• Biomedical Sciences: Medical Physics, Doctor of Philosophy

• Physics, Master of Science

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