Today is 02-09-2010
Departments
The Solid Sate Physics Department was created in 1960, although its beginnings were around the year 1958 working on dielectric breakdown using a Cockroft-Walton voltage multiplier designed and built
in the Institute of Physics; these studies were performed using the crystals grown in the new department's facilities. Later, theoretical studies about the crystal energies were carried on and other
experimental techniques were introduced such as x-ray diffraction and Electron Paramagnetic Resonance. Since then the Department has been in expansion introducing new experimental and theoretical
studies.
The Solid State Physics Department consists of 25 Professors and 4 Research Associates.
At the present time the Department has evolved around the following topics: Physics of inhomogeneous media. Synthesis and characterization of new ceramics. Electronic, thermodynamic, optical and
magnetic properties of crystalline solids. Radiation-Matter interactions in crystalline solids. Wave propagation in inhomogeneous media. Nonlinear optics. Sonoluminescence, as well as theoretical and
experimental studies of nanocompounds.
The Experimental Physics Department was initiated by the merger of
the Collisions Department and the General Physics Department in 1983.
The name comes because of historical reasons. Nowadays the department not only
carries out experimental physics but also does theoretical as well as computational research.
Of course the experimental physics made in Institute of Physics is done not only
here but also in the other academic departments.
This department is the largest of the institute, it has 29 researchers, 4 of whom are UNAM's
emeritus researchers, 4 postdoctoral researchers, 14 technicians, 9 support administratives and over 50 regular associated students.
It has an extensive experimental infrastructure: 4 particle accelerators, 1 electronic microscope,
ultra-high vacuum equipment, laboratories for building and testing radiation detectors, laboratories
for building and studying dosimeters and laboratories for samples preparation, among the most outstanding.
The Chemical Physics Department was created in 1989 to promote theoretical and experimental research in topics at the frontier of
Physics and Chemistry. Currently the Department is composed by 11 researchers all of them members of the National Research System
(SNI) and 5 research assistants.
The research activities concentrate in the following main areas which provide a broad range of research topics:
statistical physics, soft matter physics, dynamics in complex networks, structure and properties of quasicrystals,
nanomaterials, physics and electrorheology of liquid crystals, critical and electronic properties of low dimensional
materials, structural, electronic and vibrational properties of non crystalline solids.
The Department has 10 laboratories for experimental work in these areas.
The Theoretical Physics Department at IFUNAM has been a pillar in the development of physics
in Mexico and an integral part of the first institute of physics, founded by Dr. Alfredo Baños.
It is constituted by Researchers, postdocs and associated students of IFUNAM
Research GROUPS
Atomic and Molecular Physics Group
High Energy Physics Group
Group of Mathematical Physics and Quantum Mechanics
Many Body Systems Group
Group of Optics
High Pressures Laboratory
The Condensed Matter Department conducts theoretical and experimental research on the structure and properties
of matter in its condensed state. The Department research topics are: X-ray crystallography,
structure of new materials, structure and properties of quasicrystals, structural characterization
of materials by electron microscopy, simulation of images from electron microscopy, small metallic particles,
materials growth, design and development of instrumentation, nucleation modeling, and mathematical
description of transport processes. The department also provides services of production and characterization
of different materials to other departments, institutions and companies in the country.
The Complex Systems Department was created in 1990 by 6 faculty members of the Theoretical Physics Department
(Cocho, García Calderón, Lomnitz, Martínez Mekler, Pérez Pascual, and Rius). The origin of this Department
goes back to the year 1978 with the project entitled: Dynamics of Complex Systems within the High Energy
Theoretical Physics Program. Later on in 1982, the program "Dynamics of Complex Systems" was created,
participating several faculty members of recent incorporation to the Institute of Physics.
From the very beginning the faculty members of the Complex Systems Department had been interested in a broad
range of research subjects: theoretical biology, critical phenomena, disordered systems, localization,
theoretical sysmology, dynamical systems, laticce field theory, nanoscience, biocomplexity, etc.
This characteristic is shown in the current research subjects that are being developed in the department.
