UNT Physics Faculty Research Interests 

This list has been compiled from individual professors web pages for undergraduate students initiated their senior thesis work. You can access these individual web pages from:  http://www.phys.unt.edu/faculty/Index.htm

Dr. Jerome L. Duggan is actively pursuing research in several areas involving electrostatic accelerators. He has activities in Particle Induced X-ray Emission, high energy proton microprobes, and Nuclear Reaction Analysis. He is the organizer of the internationally known "Denton Accelerator Conference" held biannually at UNT.

Dr. Terry Golding research interests lie in the synthesis and characterization of semiconductor thin films, artificially structured materials and semiconductor nanostructures.

Dr. Paolo Grigolini is an internationally recognized theorist and member of the Center for Nonlinear Science, is interested in the foundations of quantum mechanics, including wave function collapse and the influence of classical chaos on quantum systems. His research program also examines the foundations of statistical physics. He is also interested in biophysical problems such as DNA sequencing.

Dr. Zhibing Hu research interests include the study of physical and chemical properties of polymer gels and related biomaterials, self-assembling and phase behavior of colloidal systems, polymer chemistry and physics, light scattering characterization, synthesis and application of nano-structured hydrogels for controlled drug release.

Dr. Donald Kobe is making significant contributions to quantum theory and to other areas of theoretical physics. He is interested in many fundamental questions of theoretical physics, and has published papers concerned with quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, statistical mechanics, classical mechanics, and electromagnetism.

Dr. Jacek Kowalski probes the theoretical foundations of statistical physics, biophysics, and the neurosciences-using the methods of nonlinear dynamics systems theory and statistical mechanics in particular neural networks and the stability properties of lasers.

Dr. Arkadii Krokhin research interests are electronic and optical properties of solids. He studies Anderson localization in disordered systems, dynamical chaos in electron transport in semiconductor heterostructures, optics of photonic crystals, and manifestations of quantum chaos in solids.

Dr. Chris Littler's research interest lie in the areas of eletrical and optical characterization of novel semiconductor materials.

Dr. Samuel Matteson joined UNT in 1987 and was the Chair of the Department of Physics from 1993 - 2003. His research interests involve the acoustics of musical instruments, the applications of accelerators to ion-solid interactions, and the characterization of materials systems, including fluorine diffusion dating of archaeological flints. 

Dr. Floyd McDaniel directs the Ion Beam Modification and Analysis Laboratory (IBMAL), and is actively pursuing research in atomic/molecular physics and materials analysis. He is the coordinator of the Trace Element Accelerator Mass Spectroscopy Project. The IBMAL contains five electrostatic accelerators with potentials from 200KV to a 3 MV tandem accelerator. Dr McDaniel has been the Chair of the Department of Physics since 2003.

Dr. Dennis Mueller investigates the interactions of electrons with atoms by scattering electrons and atom beams. He also is playing an active part in the development of a portable X-ray diffraction instrument for application to characterization of metallurgical samples.

Dr. Arup Neogi research interests include experimental and theoretical aspects of ultrafast optical properties of semiconductor including soft condensed matter physics. His current research interests include ultrafast and nonlinear optical effects in nitride semiconductors, intersubband device physics, organic- inorganic luminescent hetrostructure and optical sensing and bio-imaging using semiconductor quantum dots.

Dr. Carlos A. Ordonez research projects include Penning Trap Related Research Including Antimatter Studies, Cryogenic Heat Engine Research, Plasma Space-Charge Research Including Plasma Sheath Related Studies

Dr. James Roberts studies the properties of liquids, particularly water, using microwave irradiation. He and collaborators have discovered an overlooked second order phase transition of liquid water.

Dr. Jose Perez conducts experimental research in condensed matter physics, specifically the formation and growth of polycrystalline diamond on silicon. He uses highly advanced research tools such as scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and Raman spectroscopy to characterize the surfaces and structure of this potentially very important material.

Dr. David Shiner uses precision laser techniques to measure fundamental properties of atoms to incredible precision and accuracy in order to test experimentally fundamental theories of Quantum Electrodynamics.

Dr. Sandra Quintanilla is an atomic theorist who studies various aspects of the three body Coulomb problem. In particular she studies positron collision, (E-2e) collisions, and photon interactions. Positron collisions have important applications in many areas of physics such as solid state and astrophysics.

Dr. Duncan Weathers investigates experimentally the widely-applied process of sputtering, which might be described as "atomic sand blasting," in which atoms are removed from a surface by the impact of energetic atoms or ions. He uses the technique of Resonance Ionization Spectroscopy for his sputtering analysis.