Mueller Lecture in Physics Scheduled for 19 April

16 April 2007—Steven A. Kivelson, professor of physics at Stanford University, will present the 2007 E.W. Mueller Memorial Lecture in Physics, titled "Intermediate Electronic Phases: Between the Fermi Liquid and the Wigner Crystal," on Thursday, 19 April 2007, at 4:00 p.m. in 117 Osmond Laboratory on the Penn State University Park campus. This free public lecture is intended for a general audience, and is sponsored by the Eberly College of Science and the Department of Physics.

Kivelson is interested in the qualitative understanding of the macroscopic and collective properties of condensed-matter systems, and in the relationship between these properties and the microscopic physics on the scale of a single electron or a single molecule. He is particularly interested in exploring electronic materials and devices where the low-energy properties are qualitatively different from those of a non-interacting electron gas.

Currently, Kivelson is focusing on the implications of a theoretical proposal he and his collaborators recently made concerning the existence and character of a variety of new zero-temperature phases of correlated electronic systems. They have named these phases "electronic liquid crystalline" in analogy with the intermediate "liquid crystal" phases of molecular liquids.

Kivelson completed his education at Harvard University, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1975, a master's degree in 1977, and a doctoral degree in 1979. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in 1979. He was at the University of California in Santa Barbara as a postdoctoral fellow from 1979 to 1981 and as a lecturer in physics from 1981 to 1982. He was an assistant professor, associate professor, and professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook from 1982 to 1989. In 1989, he was named a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he still maintains an adjunct professorship. In 2004, he joined the faculty at Stanford University as a professor of physics. In 2002, he was elected a member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The Erwin W. Mueller Memorial Lecture in Physics honors the late Erwin W. Mueller, who was an admired and respected member of the Department of Physics from 1952 until his death in 1977. Among his many accomplishments were important contributions to the field of microscopy. He invented the field ion microscope, which enabled him to be the first person to see individual atoms. He also invented the atom-probe field ion microscope, an instrument that can aim at a single atom in a crystal surface, separate it from surrounding atoms, and identify it by mass. For his numerous achievements, he was the first person at Penn State awarded the National Medal of Science.

For more information or access assistance, contact the Department of Physics at 814-865-7533.

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