MILLENNIUM SCIENCE NUCLEUS
Condensed Matter Physics

Rather than reflecting the personal view of the leader of this NUCLEUS, the present proposal is better described as the common vision of the 10 researchers initially involved in this project.

Our central goal is to promote condensed matter physics (one of the most active branches of physics nowadays) in a fairly small scientific environment such as the Chilean community of physicists. We expect to contribute by creating new knowledge in close relation to the most relevant aspects of modern technology. The energy window for the interactions considered in our work is centered around the scale of one electron-volt. This is where most interesting, and at the same time trivial, physical phenomena of everyday life occur ( the emission of light, the combustion of a gas, the magic of communication and its detection). The emphasis of our work will be rest in low-dimensionality, confinement and finite size effects. Many of the current applications of condensed matter physics take place in this scale. We wish to put together our previous experiences in subjects that are complementary, to go beyond our present collaborations. In this way we want to revert, to some extent, the tendency to individualism that traditional mechanisms of assigning research funds have generated in our scientific community.

The impact generated by any of these Nuclei should not be judged only by the quality of the research, no matter how good it could be, if it does not produce a positive feedback on the new generation of scientists. Because of this, the spectrum of our external activities will span from lectures and summer schools for high-school students to go on with seminars and symposia. Including also the very important part of our contribution to society through the training of graduate students. As part of this grant we include the exchange among centers in the country and abroad of graduate students allowing their exposure to very specialized subjects related to this proposal. Finally, we will also include new and challenging problems for our postdocs in areas involving a sizable numbers of members of our Nucleus.

We believe these are fairly demanding goals, but the 10 researchers in our group have a proven record of achievements both at the individual and collective level to guarantee success in this task We can also mention, that we have selected a variety of problems on modern condensed matter physics as the core of our initial scientific proposal. New and emerging interesting topics will be added in subsequent years. All of this work will be done according to the profile we have defined for our group: combining experimental, theoretical and computational techniques to provide a deeper understanding of the subject matter of our research.

Condensed Matter Physics is the largest and most active field of physics nowadays and it has been so, for several decades, constantly giving rise to new phenomena. It is not rare to find that some of its developments become useful devices in every day life. Seen from this point of view, condensed matter physics is a must for every organized society. Its development should include both scientists and engineers, and also the education of the younger generations on the elementary aspects of this field, so they could understand the changing technologies that form part of the environment of modern life.
In Chile, condensed matter physics has a tradition of almost 4 decades. It originated in the research of individuals working on crystallography, then passed to some small groups doing solid state physics and at present it covers aspects of surface physics, material science and other related areas. However, physicists working on this field are scattered through many institutions around the country. We believe that the idea of a "Nucleus" provides the opportunity of bringing a group of them together, thus increasing the impact of their work. This kind of local collaboration has been done in the past with very little support from funding agencies within our country. The present proposal aims to "nucleate" our work, to increase our productivity on organized bases and create a seed on which the future generation of condensed matter physicists can grow as a community.
Early condensed matter physics dealt with properties of the bulk of solid materials, where the three physical dimensions play an equivalent role. However, more recent developments related to miniaturization of devices, where confinement is a key element, giving rise to what is now called low-dimensional physics. This area of physics, much related to engineering, has been the subject of recent interest from both theoretical and experimental points of view because of its many actual and potential applications. Low dimensionality, finite sizes, confinement, localization and mesoscopic systems are key elements of this proposal.