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Department of Physics

The Cavendish Laboratory
 

Biography

Nigel Cooper received a D. Phil from the University of Oxford in 1994. He held research positions at Harvard University and the Institut Laue Langevin, and was a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Birmingham before joining the Cavendish in 2000. He was awarded the 2007 Maxwell Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics, a Humboldt Research Award (2013), an EPSRC Established Career Fellowship (2013), a Simons Investigator Award (2017) and the 2019 Lord Rayleigh Prize of the IOP.

Research

My research interests are focused on the nature and properties of the novel phases of matter that can emerge as a result of quantum mechanical effects in interacting many-particle systems. In particular, I am interested in the role of topology in the collective properties of ultra-cold atomic gases and in the electronic properties of novel solid state materials.

Publications

Key publications: 
  • Fragility of time-reversal symmetry protected topological phases, Max McGinley and Nigel R. Cooper, Nature Physics (2020)
  • Tenfold Way for Quadratic Lindbladians, Simon Lieu, Max McGinley and Nigel R. Cooper, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 040401 (2020)
  • Topological Marker Currents in Chern Insulators, M. D. Caio, G. Möller, N. R. Cooper and M. J. Bhaseen, Nature Physics 15, 257 (2019)
  • Topological Bands for Ultracold Atoms, N. R. Cooper, J. Dalibard, and I. B. Spielman, Rev. Mod. Phys. 91, 015005 (2019)
  • Quantum oscillations without a Fermi surface and the anomalous de Haas-van Alphen effect, J. Knolle and N. R. Cooper, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 146401 (2015)
  • Measuring the Chern number of Hofstadter bands with ultracold bosonic atoms, M. Aidelsburger, M. Lohse, C. Schweizer, M. Atala, J. T. Barreiro, S. Nascimbène, N. R. Cooper, I. Bloch, N. Goldman. Nature Physics 11, 162 (2015)
  • Optical Flux Lattices for Ultracold Atomic Gases, N. R. Cooper, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 175301 (2011).
  • Quantum phases of vortices in rotating atomic Bose-Einstein Condensates, N. R. Cooper, N. K. Wilkin and J. M. F. Gunn, Physical Review Letters 87, 120405 (2001).
  • Thermoelectric Response of an Interacting Two-Dimensional Electron Gas in Quantizing Magnetic Field, N. R. Cooper, B. I. Halperin and I. M. Ruzin, Physical Review B 55, 2344 (1997).

Please visit the publications webpage for a list of publications.

Deputy Head of Department
Professor of Theoretical Physics
Fellow of Pembroke College
Chair of the Strategy Working Group
Professor Nigel  Cooper

Contact Details

Email address: 
Room 500, Mott Building
Cavendish Laboratory
JJ Thomson Avenue
Cambridge
CB3 0HE
+44 (0)1223 765127

Affiliations

Classifications: 
Person keywords: 
Quantum Devices and Measurements
Theoretical and Computational Physics
Emergent Quantum Phenomena
ultracold atoms
Quantum materials