Professor Terry Hwa:

Summer research projects in biophysics: To implement and evaluate strategies of detecting weak sequence similarities among genes of distantly related species. Homology detection is an essential part of molecular biology. In this project, we’ll use a new approach to similarity detection developed from the theory of phase transitions. Interested students should have familiarity with programming, interest in biology, and a first course in statistical mechanics.

Professor Nguyen-Huu Xuong:

We are looking for one or more students who are interested in the hardware design of a pixel imaging system for Protein Crystallography. The student will participate in the design of a real time data acquisition system using room temperature Si or CdZnTe solid state x-ray detectors and associated support hardware on an ISA or VME platform. Students should have a basic understanding of analog and digital electronics including ADC/DAC conversion techniques and some programming experience in C or C++. Tasks will include circuit design using Pspice and will be expected to follow up the design with a working prototype using a computer interface. IN addition to hardware design, the candidate will be expected to use their analytical skills to model charge transport of the solid state detector materials using Matlab and/or Pspice.

Professor Sally Ride:

EarthKAM. Students involved in this program control and Earth-looking digital camera carried on board the space shuttle, process the resulting images, and put them(and other space shuttle information) on the web for use by middle school students. Undergraduate researchers develop software to run a control center at UCSD, display space shuttle groundtracks, process and archive images, and develop interactive web pages to allow middle school students to access the information and communicate with the control center.

Professor Dimitri Bassov:

Our research involves infrared spectroscopy of novel materials which exhibit exotic electronic properties. One of the possible projects is devoted to the study of high-T_c superconductors using infrared methods. This includes taking measurements of the low-temperature reflectance of (Y-Pr)BaCuO microcrystals using state-of-the-art Fourier-transform interfermoeter, and analysis of the results. Another project involves construction of a set-up for grazing incidence infrared reflectometry. This apparatus will be used for the survey of the anisotropy of the electronic transport in novel superconducting and magnetic materials.

Professor Frances Hellman:

The project is in experimental condensed matter/materials physics. Details will be arrived at depending on interest and expertise of the student, but will likely be in the area of research on novel magnetic materials. A potential project is to look at the electrical conductivity of amorphous Silicon doped with magnetic ions. In particular, we are interested in understanding the effects of the local magnetic moments on the conductivity, which can be extremely large. The student will be involved in the preparation, characterization or measurements of these materials, using, for example, an ultra-high vacuum multi-source deposition system, various magnetometers for magnetic measurements, and/or a transport measurement apparatus.

Professor Brian Maple:

Single crystals of high temperature copper oxide superconductors will be prepared and characterized. Electrical resistivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements will then be performed in both the normal and superconducting states. Efforts will be made to increase the superconducting transition temperature as well as to optimize the superconducting properties of these single crystals. Electrical resistivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements will also be made.

Professor Ivan Schuller:

Our group is involved in a variety of problems in complex materials in reduced dimensionality. We are trying to bridge the gap between the three dimensional infinite solid and the atoms. This is a largely unexplored area in solid state physics, in which much of the current solid state activity concentrates. The type of phenomena explored include high and low temperature superconductivity and magnetism in a variety of configurations. This is done by using a large number of sophisticated materials preparation, state of the art vacuum and lithographic techniques, combined with sophisticated structural determination probes and a variety of physical property measurements such as magnetotransport, photoconductivity, magnetic and thermodynamic measurements in a wide range of temperature and magnetic field. Many of the above mentioned techniques are directly applicable in industrial processes.

Professor Shelly Schultz:

Our laboratory specializes in doing experiments that require our designing advanced instrumentation, such as Single molecule optical spectroscopy, magnetic atomic force scanning microscopy, and nanolithography. Our

applications range from biophysics to magnetic storage, always with emphasis on nano-sized entities.

Professor Vivek Sharma:

We offer opportunities for undergraduate research in Experimental High Energy Physics using a Matter-Antimatter collider at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. The research opportunities include study of

the properties of particles made of charm and beauty quarks, particularly their lifetimes. Novel reconstruction techniques for measuring the trajectory of sub-atomic charged particles using silicon vertex detector and drift chamber will be emphasized. Experience in Object Oriented programming (C++, Java) and electronics are

required as is some knowledge of Quantum Physics and Relativity. Visit the URL http://hep.ucsd.edu/~vsharma/reu.html for details.

Professor John Goodkind:

We are searching for a possible Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) of defects in solid 4He crystals. Solid Helium is a ‘quantum crystal’ in which the quantum zero point motion of the atoms is a significant fraction of the interatomic spacing. As a consequence, defects are expected to be able to move freely in the same way that electrons do in metals. If they move freely they act like particles and can undergo the BEC. The primary tool that we have been using to study these defects is ultrasonic velocity and attenuation. Sound waves are scattered by lattice defects so that the temperature dependence of the attenuation and velocity provides information about them. Recently we found a new second order phase transition in solid 4He when we added as little as 14ppm of 3He impurities. It is consistent with a BEC but we still have not proved it. Currently we are measuring the influence of propagating heat pulses on the acoustic properties. The results are providing additional evidence that the defects move through the crystal and we hope may soon provide unambiguous evidence of the BEC.

Professor Henry Abarbanel:

We conduct research into communication using chaotic transmitters and receivers. We investigate, design and build systems both wireless and optical. We are also investigating fundamental issues associated with classification and prediction in high dimensional systems, such as the lasers we use in communications.

Please check http://www-physics.ucsd.edu/was-sdphul/dept/reu/index.html

for additional faculty mentor research descriptions and updated project descriptions.

Additional program information and an application can also be found at the above address.