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Condensed Matter Theory

Condensed Matter Physics is the field of the Physics whose main interest is to understand the physical properties of materials in the condensed phase. Among many topics studied by Condensed Matter physicists, my main interest lies on electrical and electronic properties of nanometric systems with low dimensionality:

Electrical Properties of Biomolecules: Biomolecules are pointed out as a potential candidate to integrate nano-electronic devices. In particular, much attention has been payed to DNA molecules. Nevertheless, a mandatory property aspirant of a material used for technological purpose is the ability to support electrical current. Working alongside with the Complex Nano Material group of the Technische Universität Dresden, we have developed a new hybrid method which combines first principle and model Hamiltonian to calculate electrical properties of biomolecules. We have shown that DNA molecules can support high electrical current and that the role played by the solvent is crucial.

Electronic properties of nanometric systems: The main question here is: How does an electron behave if it is placed in a low dimensional nanometric system under the influence of ingredients others than a periodic potential from the lattice?
One interesting example is the inclusion of disorder: It has been shown that all states in disordered low dimensional systems are localized, irrespective to the strength of disorder. However, when there is some correlation in the statistical of the disorder, delocalized states can emerge. My works is concerned with the influence of disorder correlation on the degree of the localization of states. For example, on my work with Prof Peter A. Schulz (my Doctorate advisor at the time), we showed that base pairing, a correlation naturally present in DNA molecule, may circumvent the localization.
Spin-Orbit coupling is another ingredient that leads to behaviors that are interesting from the academic and technological perspective. One can explore the spin-dependent properties to make spintronic devices without the need of an external magnetic field. It has been shown that the electrical charges localized along the helicoidal DNA molecule structure originate a spin-orbit potential. I have shown that, due to this potential, the electronic velocity is spin-dependent and, thus, DNA molecules can work as a spin filter.

At the moment, I am very interested in the effects of the environment on the spin-dependent properties. By using density matrix formalism of Quantum Mechanics, one can write a Lindblad equation for the electron under action of a realistic boson bath (representing the environment) and how the decoherence kills the spin-dependent properties.