Marie Lopez del Puerto

Graduate Student in Physics
Research Assistant



Contact Information
School of Physics and Astronomy
University of Minnesota
116 Church St. SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Office: Tate Lab 138
Phone: (612) 626-0508
E-mail: mlopez at physics.umn.edu

Education
Ph.D. in Physics, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, USA (expected Summer 2008)
M.S. in Physics, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, USA (2004)
B.S. in Physics, Universidad de las Americas-Puebla, Mexico (2002)

Research
Clusters are systems that contain only a few to a few thousand atoms. They have attracted considerable attention in the past decades as it was discovered that their structure and electronic and optical properties can be significantly different than bulk materials. Furthermore, it was realized that because a cluster's properties depend on size, it is possible to tailor these properties, which might lead to new technological applications. The goal of my research project is to use the real-space pseudopotential method within DFT (density functional theory), as well as TDDFT (time-dependent density functional theory) and many-body methods to study the properties of atomic clusters.

My research adviser is Prof. Jim Chelikowsky

The code: PARSEC

Center for Computational Materials, UT-Austin

Institute for the Theory of Advanced Materials


Publications
"Ab initio methods for the optical properties of CdSe clusters," Marie Lopez del Puerto, Murilo L. Tiago and James R. Chelikowsky, Physical Review B (in print).

"Ab initio calculation of temperature effects in the optical response of open-shell sodium clusters," Marie Lopez del Puerto, Murilo L. Tiago and James R. Chelikowsky, Journal of Chemical Physics 127, 144311 (2007).

"Excitonic effects and optical properties of passivated CdSe clusters," Marie Lopez del Puerto, Murilo L. Tiago and James R. Chelikowsky, Physical Review Letters 97, 096401 (2006).

"Symmetry considerations in CdSe Nanocrystals," Gustavo M. Dalpian, Murilo L. Tiago, Marie Lopez del Puerto, and James R. Chelikowsky, Nano Letters 6, 501 (2006).

"Real-space pseudopotential calculations of the ground-state and excited-state properties of the water molecule," Marie Lopez del Puerto, Murilo L. Tiago, Igor Vasiliev, and James R. Chelikowsky, Physical Review A 72, 052504 (2005).

Links
www.tddft.org
Women in Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota


Physics Home Page

The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota.

mlopez@physics.umn.edu