Course summary

This group incorporates molecular and optical physics, and covers a world of applications, from computational materials physics to quantum ordering to soft matter physics. Condensed matter physics overlaps considerably with materials science, as well as biological and earth sciences, and relies on fundamental developments in statistical physics and novel simulation methodologies. Our research is concerned with the study of liquids and solids, and ‘viscoelastic’ materials (such as polymers and suspensions) with properties in between. We aim to discover and characterise the behaviour of these materials in the laboratory, and understand such behaviour in terms of the microscopic constituents. Experimentally, the determination of structure and the characterisation of static and dynamic optical, electrical, magnetic, mechanical and other properties under ambient and extreme conditions call upon a wide range of tools.