Marvin L. Cohen is University Professor of Physics at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Cohen’s current and past research covers a broad spectrum of subjects in theoretical condensed matter physics. He is a recipient of the National Medal of Science, the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics, the American Physical Society Oliver E. Buckley Prize for Solid State Physics, the Dickson Prize in Science, the Von Hippel Award of the Materials Research Society, the American Physical Society Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize, the Foresight Institute Richard P. Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, the Technology Pioneer Award from the World Economic Forum, the Berkeley Citation, along with other honors and Doctor Honoris Causa degrees from the University of Montreal, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Weizmann Institute of Science. Cohen has contributed more than 870 technical publications and is one of the world’s most cited physicists. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2005, Cohen was President of the American Physical Society, an organization representing more than 50,000 physicists in universities, industry and national laboratories.
Research Interests
At any given time, my group and I are involved in research on a variety of subjects in condensed matter physics. Because of the breadth of this field, it is important to expose graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to a wide spectrum of problems. A broad view is also important because new breakthroughs occur in different subareas of this field. Since the research projects are chosen because of their inherent scientific importance, we are sometimes working directly with experimentalists and at other times developing new formalisms and techniques to understand or solve a problem. We are often trying to predict the existence of new materials and attempting to explain or predict new properties of condensed matter systems.
Current Projects
Some of our current research is in the area of nanoscience and nanotechnology. The major systems under investigation are nanotubes, graphene, large molecules like C36, nanocrystals or quantum dots, clusters, onions, cones, horns, nanowires, etc. The quantum nature of these systems makes them physically interesting and provides a variety of possible applications.
There is almost always some work going on in my group on superconductivity, semiconductors, and predicting new materials. Currently, we are focused on increasing the superconducting transition temperature, photovoltaics, and new high pressure structures.
Please visit the Marvin L. Cohen Research Group website for more on our research as well as a list of current publications.