Faculty Research Areas

Dave Baxter

Dr. Baxter's research is focused in the area of neutron scattering, with an emphasis on the development of new neutron instrumentation and the application of that instrumentation to important problems in materials research. The instrumentation work is split between the development of novel neutron moderator designs and materials, and a new project devoted to instrumentation that exploits manipulation of the neutron spin to enhance resolution without sacrificing intensity and to provide novel probes of magnetic structure and dynamics in materials. Neutron scattering is also being used to investigate the structure of fluids in confined geometries and hierarchical materials such as bone. In addition to this work with neutron scattering, he is conducting fundamental investigations of novel materials, including structural, magnetic, and transport studies of nanostructured materials.

Roger Pynn

Dr. Pynn's research interests include the structures of complex fluids and biomolecular systems, both in bulk and as films and membranes studied with neutron and x-ray scattering, magnetic structures of thin films and multilayers, and advanced neutron scattering instrumentation.

When neutrons are scattered from matter, the resulting angular and velocity distributions of the scattered neutrons can be interpreted to determine where atoms are located and how they move. Neutrons interact with matter in a unique manner that allows them to identify hydrogen and other light atoms among heavy atoms, making them very useful for the study of biological macromolecules and man-made polymers, both of which contain substantial amounts of hydrogen. At LENS, neutron scattering will be used primarily to study large-scale (1 -1000nm) structure of materials.

Mike Snow

Dr. Snow is interested in studying the weak interactions of the neutron, such as neutron decay and Standard Model tests of the electroweak theory and nucleon-nucleon weak interaction studies as probes of quark-quark correlations in the QCD ground state. Additionally, he is interested in precision measurements of coherent scattering lengths in few body systems using neutron interferometry, development of absolute measurement techniques for flux and polarization in neutron physics, development of high-precision techniques in neutron spectroscopy, and development of polarized 3He-based neutron polarizers and analyzers. Dr. Snow has also been involved with the design and construction of the LENS pulsed cold neutron source.

Paul Sokol

Dr. Sokol's research efforts focus on the microscope structure and dynamics of condensed matter using x-ray and neutron scattering techniques. Areas of study include the following:

Collective Excitations in Confined Quantum Liquids
Momentum Distribution of Hydrogen on Surfaces
Microscopic Structure of Confined Solids
Wetting on Nonstructural Surfaces
Dynamics of Hydrogen in Reduced Dimensionality
Hydrogen Storage Materials