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Physics and Astronomy

Department Feature
Transient Defects Caught in the Act
Anisotropic x-ray diffuse scattering pattern surrounding the (200) Bragg reflection of La1.8Sr2.2Mn2O7 at 125 K. This "butterfly" scattering is evidence that Jahn-Teller polarons (football-shaped lattice distortions that follow hopping electrons from site to site) play a role in this material's exotic phase transition from paramagnetic insulator to ferromagnetic metal. Branton Campbell and collaborators used this data to conduct the first quantitative three-dimensional structural analysis of a transient crystal defect. Phys. Rev. B 67, 020409(R) (2003). Read More

Department News for Saturday May 18th, 2013

Learn More About the Department

The BYU Department of Physics and Astronomy offers unique and valuable opportunities for students. Click below to watch a short video describing some of these opportunities. [Read More]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

The Waterfall and the World at Night

Last week, as the Sun set a Full Moon rose over the springtime landscape of Tihany, Hungary on the northern shores of Lake Balaton. As it climbed into the clear sky, the Moon just grazed the dark, umbral shadow of planet Earth in the year's first partial lunar eclipse. [Read More]

The Astronomy Picture of the Day is a NASA web site that features a new image or photograph of the universe each day.

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