Leader: Prof Nithaya Chetty - BSc (U. Natal), BSc Hons (U. Natal), MS (U. Illinois), PhD (U. Illinois)
Quantum Mechanical Modeling of Solids
Density functional theory implemented in state of the art computational codes and access to excellent computing hardware infrastructure make it possible to study theoretically a range of different material systems for their various properties. Some of the materials currently under study within the Theoretical and Computational Solid State Physics Research group include diamond, graphite, graphene, boronitride, boronitrene, silicon carbide, alloys involving transition metals such as iridium, platinum and titanium combined with boron, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, alloys involving lanthanides and actinides, and so on. Some of the material properties that are being computed include the equilibrium crystal structure, the electronic structure, defect relaxations, optical properties, vibrational properties, elastic properties, surface reconstructions, etc.
Computational Physics Research
Use of Fortran, Mathematica, Maple and Java programming to study physics problems on the computer resulting in publishable work. Current research problems are in the areas of statistical physics, solid state physics, quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, etc.
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