Research Activities:
Computational methods and many-body techniques are employed in the study of novel materials that exhibit properties of great fundamental interest and potential applications. Current research interests include (1) nanomechanical behavior of strong covalent and metallic solids, nanocomposite bulk materials, and nanotubes and graphene systems both in pure forms and on substrates, (2) novel structural forms of covalent networks, (3) new physics and applications of topological insulators, (4) lattice dynamics and thermodynamic properties of solids at high pressure and high temperature, (5) structural, phonon and electronic properties of advanced thermoelectric materials.
Computational approaches developed and applied to the study of novel materials include a combined first-principles and many-body approach to the study of correlated real materials, density-functional tight-binding total energy calculations, ab initio pseudopotential calculations, density matrix renormalization group method, and first-principles, tight-binding and classical molecular dynamics simulations.

Research projects in the group have been supported by the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, the W. M. Keck Foundation, and the Bigelow Foundation.