Adrian Gozar
Adrian’s research encompasses a range of areas and involved the use of several experimental techniques. The focus was, however, always on the understanding of collective electronic behavior in complex materials and of key aspects related to materials science, synthesis and exploitation of their functional behavior. Adrian received his Ph.D. in physics in 2004 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From 1999 to 2004, he was de facto based at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. His studies at Bell were mostly focused on magnetism (e.g. quantum effects in low dimensions, disorder, frustration, light coupling mechanism to magnetic excitations) and various aspects of correlated electron physics. In 2004 Adrian moved on to work as a Goldhaber Fellow in the Oxide Molecular Beam Epitaxy group at Brookhaven National Lab. The research themes pursued revolved around superconductivity (e.g. mechanism, competing orders, dimensionality) and the physics of surfaces and interfaces (e.g. structure, interface superconductivity, routes for Tc enhancement, disorder effects). In 2010 Adrian received the Early Career Award from the U.S. Department of Energy and he used that opportunity to design and build novel instrumentation for performing optics at the nano-scale in a variable temperature environment using a cryogenic Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscope. This project was aimed at studying competing phases in correlated systems (e.g. phase transitions, role of intrinsic/extrinsic inhomogeneities) and of emergent phenomena associated with surfaces and buried interfaces in artificial nano-structures and devices. Starting in 2015 this effort continues in the Applied Physics Department at Yale University and is complemented by the capabilities and surface sensitivity of a Low Energy Electron Microscopy.
Research interests:
• Low dimensional systems and nanostructures
• Strongly correlated electronic systems
• Superconductivity
• Magnetism
• Surfaces and Interfaces: structure and electronic properties
• Scanning probe microscopies and optical spectroscopy: instrumentation development and
applications
Laboratory experience and skills:
• Experimental techniques: inelastic light scattering / optical spectroscopy / low energy ion scattering spectroscopy / X-ray diffraction / scanning probe microscopy (atomic force and scanning near-field microscopy) / dc and ac transport / low energy electron microscopy. Familiar with muon spin rotation spectroscopy, optical ellipsometry, thin film growth.
• Instrumentation: vacuum / cryogenics / magnetic fields / optical equipment and spectrometers / light sources (lasers, broadband, synchrotron radiation) / spectroscopic signal detection / molecular beam epitaxy/ basic clean room experience (sputtering, evaporation, etching) / analytical tools (SEM, profilometry).
Awards and honors:
2010: Early Career Research Program Award.
2004: Distinguished Goldhaber Fellowship, Brookhaven National Laboratory.
1992 - 1997: Romanian Governmental Scholarship and Award of Merits.
Research grants - Funding:
2006-2009: Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program – LDRD Project No. 07-
038: Angle-Resolved Time-of-Flight Ion Scattering Spectroscopy from MBE-Grown
Oxide Thin Film Surfaces; Adrian Gozar, PI
2010-2015: U.S. DOE, Office of Science Early Career Research Program, $2.5 million for
five years: Investigation of the role of inhomogeneities and phase segregation on
correlated electron dynamics by optical spectroscopy and nano-imaging.
Adrian Gozar, PI.
Academic Degrees:
Ph.D., Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), October 2004
M.S., Physics, University of Bucharest, Romania, May 1998
B.S., Physics, University of Bucharest, Romania, May 1997
Employment History:
2015 – 2024: Research Scientist, Yale University.
2012 – 2015: Scientist, Brookhaven National Laboratory.
2009 – 2012: Associate Scientist, Brookhaven National Laboratory.
2007 – 2009: Assistant Scientist, Brookhaven National Laboratory.
2004 – 2007: Research Associate, Brookhaven National Laboratory.
1999 – 2004: Graduate Assistant, research work at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies.
1998 – 2004: Graduate Assistant (research and/or teaching), Physics, UIUC.
Teaching Experience:
1998 – 1999: teaching/grading: Thermodynamics and statistical physics, graduate course,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
2005 – 2015: guidance and mentorship of postdoctoral associates, graduate and undergraduate
students at Brookhaven Lab.
2015 – present: supervisor of postdoctoral research associates.
Membership in Professional Associations:
• Member of the American Physical Society
• Referee for Physical Review Letters & Physical Review B.
• Member of the Materials Research Society