Distinguished Bell Labs scientist joining Los Alamos

Contact: David Lyons, davidlyons@lanl.gov, (505) 665-9198 (00-137)

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LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Oct. 18, 2000 -- One of the leading researchers in solid state and materials physics will be joining the U.S. Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory later this year. Art Ramirez, currently a distinguished technical staff member at Lucent Technologies’ Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, will become the new group leader of Condensed Matter and Thermal Physics within the Laboratory’s Materials Science and Technology Division.

Laboratory Director John Browne said, "We are very pleased that Art has decided to join the Laboratory’s materials division. Materials research is critical to the success of our programmatic activities. He is the kind of strategic hire who will carry on this Laboratory’s tradition as one of the nation’s preeminent scientific labs. Art is an authority in his field and we look forward to his continued scholarship and leadership."

"I’m thrilled to be joining the Laboratory because of the tremendous opportunities to do great science here," Ramirez said. "I believe that Los Alamos represents one of only a few places in the country with the capabilities needed to be the leader in solid-state sciences, as well as in thermal and fluid science. It’s a world-class operation and I look forward to being a part of it."

Ramirez will be directing the research efforts of the approximately 45 personnel in Condensed Matter and Thermal Physics. The group focuses on characterizing and understanding the physics of materials, particularly those with unusual superconducting, magnetic and semiconducting groundstates. The group also develops novel material characterization capabilities and applies them to industrial, security, and energy-related technologies. Additionally, the group’s researchers investigate fluid dynamics and thermodynamics in non-linear science and refrigeration.

Bill Press, principal deputy Laboratory director for Science, Technology and Programs, said, "Art Ramirez’s decision to join the Laboratory is just one signal that the long-term prospects for great science at Los Alamos are very good. We welcome his arrival."

While at Bell Labs, Ramirez pioneered the field of "geometrical frustration" in magnetism. "Geometrical frustration" refers to a phenomenon in which magnets, or other materials, are "frustrated" when they are forced to settle into a single state. A typical "frustrated" material will want to settle in many different states, for instance as it cools down from the temperature at which the solid forms. The dynamics of how the magnets switch from one state to another have implications for new states of magnetism, but also have potential applications to other materials. For example, Ramirez recently found several of the hallmarks of geometrical frustration in a material that undergoes negative thermal expansion, meaning that it expands (rather than shrinks) as it is cooled. This type of research could have applications ranging from optical switches to dentistry. Ramirez will continue this work at Los Alamos.

In addition, Ramirez plans to continue researching two-dimensional electron system transitions between the metallic and insulating states, as well as large dielectric constants in new materials (for possible use in microelectronics, such as dynamic random access memory). He will also focus on high-temperature superconducting materials and new directions in molecular conductors.

Ramirez received his doctorate and bachelor of science both in physics from Yale University. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and was a Bell Laboratories Cooperative Research Fellowship Program Predoctoral Fellow. Ramirez has been published extensively and over 4,400 articles have cited his work in the past 10 years, as ranked by the Institute for Scientific Information®.

Tom Meyer, associate Laboratory director for Strategic and Supporting Research, and Ross Lemons, division director of MST, applauded the work of Joe Thompson, who has served a total of 11 years as the Deputy Group Leader, and more recently as Group Leader, of the Condensed Matter and Thermal Physics Group. Thompson is leaving the group leader position to return to research.

More news releases from the Materials Science and Technology (MST) Division