Hunter College is one of the four campuses of the City University of New York which participate in the CUNY Ph.D. Program in Physics. Graduate students typically spend their first year taking courses at the Graduate School, after which they take a qualifying exam (the First Examination) on four subjects: Classical Mechanics; Electricity and Magnetism; Quantum Mechanics; and General Physics. After passing this Examination, students select a thesis advisor who works with them on their thesis research.
It has been the Department's policy to provide financial support through a combination of fellowships and teaching and research assistantships for all graduate students making satisfactory progress towards a degree.
The following is a list of Doctoral Faculty and their research interests.
Professor Janos Bergou: Quantum optics in general; quantum theory of lasers with particular emphasis on correlated emission lasers and lasers without inversion; nonclassical states of the electromagnetic field including squeezed states and their applications; micromasers, the effect of atomic coherence and pumping statistics in maser and laser dynamics; atom Lasers and atomic optics with emphasis on matter wave interferometry; quantum computing and other fundamentals of quantum mechanics using quantum optical methods.
Professor Ying-Chih Chen: Physics, devices and materials of lasers: II-VI compound semiconductor quantum-well lasers emitting in the visible regime; photo-pumping and photoluminescence study of semiconductor quantum wells; mechanism and dynamics of phase locking in laser array; physics and technology of miniature solid-state lasers with large Fresnel number; optical fiber lasers; Growth of crystal fibers for solid-state lasers.
Professor Leon Cohen: Quantum mechanics: phase space formulation, local values; N-Body gravitational problem: time evolution of stellar systems; computer simulation, time-varying spectral analysis: sonar, radar, pulse propagation in dispersive, media; human speech; machine fault analysis.
Professor Kelle Cruz: Observational Astronomy. Optical and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy. Low-Mass stars and Brown Dwarfs. Low-mass Populations of Young Moving Groups.
Professor Steven G. Greenbaum: Physics and chemistry of disordered media; mass transport in solids, experimental investigations of materials for advanced power sources; e.g. transition metal oxides insertion compounds for lithium batteries, polymeric proton conductors for fuel cells, etc. Facilities for solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance, electron paramagnetic resonance, and differential scanning calorimetry.
Professor Godfrey Gumbs: Condensed matter theory with emphasis on many-body electron effects on the optical and transport properties of nanostructures; resonant tunneling structures and electronic properties of solids: semiconductor heterojunctions and superlattices; molecular dynamics simulations; electron transmission in Fibonacci quasi-crystals; quantum ballistic transport in electronic nanostructure; Aharonov-Bohm effects in quantum waveguides and wires; the effects of electron-electron interactions on the magnetoconductance oscillations of quantum dots and antidots.
Professor Mark Hillery: Quantum copying; squeezed states; micromasers; pumping statistics in maser and laser dynamics; field quantization in nonlinear dielectric media; use of non-classical states in interferometers; higher-order squeezing; tests of quantum mechanics.
Neepa Maitra: Theoretical chemical physics, density functional theory, also semiclassical methods and quantum chaos. Especially, functional development in time-dependent density functional theory and time-dependent current-density functional theory, for electronic excitations and dynamics in atomic, molecular, chemical systems and solids.
Yuhang Ren: Novel electronic and magnetic materials and devices, including diluted magnetic semiconductors, high-Tc superconductors, and colossal magnetoresistance materials; ultrafast dynamical processes in condensed phases and nanostructures; low-energy collective excitations in correlated systems including lattice-, electronic-, spin-, and orbital- degree of freedom; spectroscopic techniques in both the frequency- and the time-domain.
Professor Rodney Varley: Theoretical plasma physics; theoretical non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of liquids.
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