Trinity College Dublin

Dr. Paul Eastham- Principal Investigator

Biography

Following an undergraduate degree at Oxford I obtained a PhD (Cambridge UK) in Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics, supervised by Prof. Peter Littlewood thesis. I undertook postdoctoral research work at the Universities of Cambridge, Manchester, and Imperial College London, supported by a range of funding sources including a personal fellowship. In 2009 I was awarded a Starting Independent Research Grant by Science Foundation Ireland to start a theory group, to work alongside the experimental semiconductor photonics research at Trinity College.

Research Interests:

I develop theories of the collective behaviours of electrons and photons in semiconductor nanostructures. Such theories help synthesize and understand experimental results, predict new effects, and guide the development of future devices. Current research topics include

• Semiconductor microcavities, Bose-Einstein condensation of polaritons and excitons, unconventional lasing;
• Quantum Hall bilayers;
• Optical manipulation of many-particle states in semiconductor quantum wells.

Recent results include predictions for the critical current of a quantum Hall bilayer and for the linewidth of a polariton condensate; the discovery of a new route to polariton condensation; and the identification of a novel technique for manipulating excitons in quantum wells.

Main publications:

See here