Richard M. Martin
Professor of Physics
Professor Richard Martin obtained his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago in 1969, after earning a S.B. in engineering physics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1964. He worked as a member of the technical staff at Bell Labs (1969-71) and then as a principal scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and a consulting professor at Stanford University. He joined the physics faculty at the University of Illinois in 1988.
A distinguished theorist who has made seminal contributions to our understanding of the electronic properties of solids, Professor Martin has used complicated formal analyses, novel computational techniques, phenomenological analyses, and the interpretation of experiments to elucidate the electronic structure of complex materials.
A major part of Richard Martin's research is a collaboration with Professor David Ceperley, Department of Physics and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, to develop computational methods that will make it possibleto predict accurately the physical properties of condensed matter from the fundamental equations. They are applying their methods to a wide range of problems with direct connections to experimental physics, astrophysics, surface science, low-temperature physics, and materials science. Their approach involves many-body quantum Monte Carlo simulations and independent-particle density functional calculations. An important aspect of the work is to combine several methods to enable accurate calculations on real materials problems. Recent accomplishments include the study of a long-standing problem in physics, the metallization of hydrogen at high pressure. Their Monte Carlo calculations are the most accurate simulations ever done for this system of interacting quantum electrons and protons. Other work has been to carry out full many-body calculations for materials of interest for technological applications, such as silicon and carbon.
Research Area: theoretical condensed matter physics; the electronic structure of condensed matter
Description of current research
The image to the left is an illustration of two contour plots of the electronic Wannier function centered about a hydrogren molecule. The blue contour represents a surface of positive amplitude and the orange that of a much weaker negative amplitude.
Electronic Structure of Condensed Matter
The goals of our research are to develop computational methods for condensed matter starting from the fundamental many-body equations. The primary methods used are quantum Monte Carlo simulations, which can find exact properties of many-body systems, and density functional methods, which can be applied to diverse solids and liquids. We are combining these approaches to create new methods and to test the accuracy of calculations on materials. Current research includes studies of electron fluids, metalization of hydrogen at high pressure, simulations of solids and liquids as a function of temperature, and atoms in strong magnetic fields.
Computational Methods for Materials
We have developed a new method for Monte Carlo simulations of interacting electrons, and we have applied the method to study the doped fullerines. The key feature is that the bands crossing the Fermi surface are degenerate, which leads to new effects not present in one-band models. Our work shows that the actual systems are near a metal-insulator transition and are metallic only because of the degeneracy.
Theory of Solids, Surfaces, and Heterostructures
We are developing theoretical methods to describe the electronic structure of solids and applying them to the calculation of properties of crystalline solids, surfaces, and interfaces. Recent work has included Monte Carlo simulations of the many-body electron problem in two-dimensional electron liquids and in the doped Fullerines. We are using density functional methods to study materials and developing new "linear scaling" algorithms for simulations of materials.
Recent Publications
Xuan L. and Martin, RM. Jahn-Teller distortion and ferromagnetism in the dilute magnetic semiconductors GaAs:Mn and cubic GaN:Mn. Phys. Rev. B 72, 035212-1-6 (2005).
Tsolakidis, A and Martin, RM. Comparison of the optical response of hydrogen-passivated germanium and silicon clusters. Phys. Rev. B 71, 125319-1-8 (2005).
Martin, RM. Electronic Structure: Basic Theory and Practical Methods 1-648 (2004).
Sanchez-Portal, D, Riikonen, S, and Martin, RM. Role of spin-orbit splitting and dynamical fluctuations in the Si(557)-Au surface. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 146803-1-4 (2004).
Rao, S, Sutin, J., Clegg, R.M, Gratton, E., Nayfeh, MH, Habbal, S. ,Tsolakidis, A. ,Martin, RM Excited states of tetrahedral single-core Si29 nanoparticles. Phys. Rev. B 69, 205319-1-7 (2004).
Ravishankar, R, Matagne, P, Leburton, JP, Martin, RM, and Tarucha, S. Three-dimensional self-consistent simulations of symmetric and asymmetric laterally coupled vertical quantum dots. Phys. Rev. B 69, 035326-1-8 (2004).
Tsolakidis, A, Shirley, EL, and Martin, RM. Effect of coupling of forward- and backward-going electron-hole pairs on the static local-field factor of jellium. Phys. Rev. B 69, 035104-1-8 (2004).
Vasiliev, I and Martin, RM. Time-dependent density-functional calculations with asymptotically correct exchange-correlation potentials. Phys. Rev. A 69, 052508-1-10 (2004).
Honors and Awards
- CU International Humanitarian Award, 2005
- General Councilor, American Physical Society, 2004
- Sabbatical Scholar, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 2000-01
- Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1996
- Senior Research Fellow Prize, Alexander Humboldt Foundation, 1994-95
- Fellow, American Physical Society, 1986
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