Dr. Charles D. Brown II

I am Charles, a National Academies Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. I work in the Ultracold Atomic Physics Group, where I perform quantum simulation experiments using ultracold atoms in optical lattices. The behavior of these atoms in optical lattices emulates some aspects of the behavior of particles in solid crystals. As a result, our simple system provides physical insight into the properties, states, and phases of complex crystalline solids. My current work aims to better understand the roles of geometry and topology in the quantum physics of crystals, and to better understand the role played by interatomic interactions in coaxing these systems into existing in exotic states of matter.