Douglas L. MillsProfessor, Physics & Astronomy |
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Research Interests |
Theory of phenomena at surfaces, in ultrathin films, and superlattices. Theory of the interaction of probes with such structures. | |
| URL | www.physics.uci.edu/faculty/mills.html | |
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Research Abstract |
Professor Mills earned his B.S. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in Engineering Physics. He then continued on with graduate studies at Berkeley with Professor Charles Kittel and received his Ph.D. degree in 1965. He was a National Science Foundation postgraduate fellow at the Universite Paris-Sud, where he studied with Professor J. Friedel. He joined the UCI faculty in 1966. He served as Department Chair from 1983-86. He has received an award from the Yamada Foundation and a senior fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and he is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. In recent years, it has become possible to synthesize new classes of materials not found in nature, by growing ultra-thin, few atomic layer films on very perfect crystal substrates. Multilayers may be formed from such films, to produce a macroscopic solid with unique and striking optical, magnetic, and electrical characteristics. It is also the case that very interesting new experimental probes have been developed which provide remarkable information on the outermost atomic layer of matter. Professor Mills's current interests center around theoretical issues raised by these new forms of matter, along with the new probes. For example, ultra-thin ferromagnetic films are two-dimensional magnetic matter; statistical mechanics tells us that the magnetism of two dimensions differs in essential ways from that found in three. Multilayer magnetic materials formed from sequences of ultrathin films can exhibit a very unusual response to external magnetic fields or changes in temperature. Current efforts are devoted to exploring models of such systems. His group has also been active in theory of atomic vibrational motions in the crystal surface, a topic now under intense experimental study thanks to recent advances in inelastic helium atom and electron spectroscopy. Electrons with kinetic energies between 10 and 200 electron volts are used as common probes of crystal surfaces and very thin films on surfaces, since in this energy range, their mean free path is only two or three interatomic spacings. Theoretical descriptions of elastic and inelastic electron scattering from surfaces are underway, with considerable focus on use of spin polarized beams as a means of examining magnetically ordered materials. The aim is to develop quantitative theories able to extract explicit information from data. This program interacts strongly with that described in the previous paragraph, in that the theories of atom vibrations and spin motions in magnets are incorporated with the theory of inelastic loss spectra, to provide interpretations of data taken with the newly developed techniques. His group interacts actively with various experimental groups elsewhere in the U.S. and in Germany. Professor Mills has authored a textbook for a new graduate course on optics and nonlinear phenomena. Its title is Non-linear Optics; Basic Concepts. |
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| Publications |
Theory of Spin Dependent Electron Diffraction from Fe (110), (with B. M. Hall and A. Ormeci), Phys. Rev. B41, 4524 (1990). |
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Origin of Spin-Dependent Asymmetries in Electron Transmission through Ultrathin Ferromagnetic Films, (with M. Gokhale), Phys. Rev. Lett. 66, 10917 (1991). |
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Anisotropy Driven Long Range Order in Ultra-thin Ferromagnetic Films, (with R. P. Erickson), Phys. Rev. B43, 11527 (1991). |
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Light Scattering from Phonons and Spin Waves on Surfaces, (with F. Nizzoli), Chapter 7 of Nonlinear Surface Electromagnetic Phenomena, edited by G. Stegeman and H. Ponath (North Holland, Amsterdam, 1991) . |
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Shear Horizontal Phonons on Ni(110), (with M. Balden, S. Lehward, H. Ibach, and A. Ormeci), Phys. Rev. B46, 11681 (1992). |
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Theory of Electron Emission Stimulated by Charged Particle Reflection from Simple Metals; the Case of Glanding Incidence, Surf. Sci. 294, 161 (1993). |
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Spin Wave Interactions in the Two Dimensional Easy Axis Heisenberg Ferromagnet, (with R. Wang), Phys. Rev. B48, 3792 (1993). |
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| Link to this profile | http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=2049 | |
| Last updated | 04/01/2002 | |