Media Arts and Technology

Our research is in experimental condensed matter physics. In particular, we are interested in how electrons move when they are confined to very tiny semiconductor structures driven by very high frequency electromagnetic radiation. More details about what we do are contained in the research section of this site.

http://sherwingroup.itst.ucsb.edu/index.html

He deals with condensed matter physics and the worlds most powerful terahertz laser. This is a spectrum between microwaves and visible light. There is very large laser lab with a giant vandergraph like machine which moves electrons a fashion similar to static electricity. He collaborates with material science in developing and testing nanomaterials. Their experiments involve firing a laser into molecular scale structures. A great deal of it used optics and electromagnetic spectrum / light spectrum research. They have a very bright green laser about the size of two loafs of bread as well which ironically is more dangerous than the thousands of square foot terahertz laser.

a) How do you gather data - optical measurements and signal monitoring with computers, I'm unclear on the specifics of this

b) What kind of technology is used - terrahertz laser, computer systems controlling cameras which monitor the laser output, many other systems

c) Does the research make you design new technology - yes, much of the research is designing new technology to do experimental observations

d) How is your data analyzed with mathematics and computer systems,

e) How do you make assumptions based on the analysis -

f) How does the analysis result in discovery - if observations matched expectations or resulted in unexpected data

g) How do you represent the results - with graphs and research publications

attached are photos from the lab visit