Physics
Professor
Professor Averitt's interests lie in the optical and electronic properties of quantum materials. His group utilizes time-resolved optical spectroscopy spanning from the far-infrared through the visible to explore the fundamental properties of quantum materials with a view toward dynamics and control. He also has long-standing interests and metamaterials and plasmonics.
Bio
Richard Averitt received his BSEE from UC San Diego in 1991 and the PhD degree in Applied Physics from Rice University in 1998 for work on the synthesis and optical characterization of plasmonic nanoshells. Following this, he was a Los Alamos National Laboratory Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow where his research focused on time resolved terahertz spectroscopy of strongly correlated electron materials and active metamaterials. In 2001, Richard became a member of the technical staff at Los Alamos, and in 2005 a member of the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies co-located at Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories. In 2007, Richard joined Boston University as a faculty member in the Department of Physics and the Boston University Photonics Center. Since 2014, Richard has been with the Department of Physics at UC San Diego. Richard’s research is primarily directed towards characterizing, creating, and controlling the optical and electronic properties of quantum materials. This includes transition metal oxides and metamaterials.