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Physics & Astronomy

Branton Campbell

Branton J. Campbell

Associate Professor

Department of Physics & Astronomy

Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602,USA

Tel: 801-422-5758   Fax: 801-422-0553

Email: branton_campbell@byu.edu

URL: http://physics.byu.edu/faculty/campbell/

Research Interests

I apply state-of-the-art x-ray and neutron scattering techniques to study local and long-range structures in a variety of complex solids, including fast-ion conductors, ferroelectric relaxors, high-temperature superconductors, and colossal magnetoresistive manganites, where nanoscale structural features influence macroscopic physical properties.  This includes the development of symmetry-mode analysis as a tool for the determination, refinement and interpretation of distorted structures involving lattice strains, atomic displacements, magnetic moments and occupational orderings at both commensurate and incommensurate wavevectors.
Featured Research
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]
 
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