Dr Robert Smith
Fellow & Tutor in Physics and Tutor for Graduates
Associate Professor of Physics
Education
MA MSc PhD (Cambridge)
I am an experimental physicist focusing on using ultracold atomic gases to study many-body quantum phenomena. The first five years of my research career were spent investigating magnetism, superconductivity and quantum phase transitions in a conventional condensed matter setting of the Quantum Matter group at Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge.
Then in 2008, recognising the potential for the study of many body physics, I decided to switch fields to study cold atomic gases in the group of Zoran Hadzibabic. In 2012 I became a Royal Society University Research Fellow (URF), also based in Cambridge.
In April 2018 I moved to Oxford and continue to hold my Royal Society URF. I have started a new experimental cold atom group and we are building up an ultracold Erbium experiment to study the effects of long-range dipole-dipole interactions on both equilibrium and non-equilibrium many-body quantum phenomena.