Kunal K. Das

Kunal K. Das

Dr. Kunal K. Das is a theoretical physicist whose research is at the exciting interface between condensed matter physics and the physics of ultracold atoms.  His general interest is in transport mechanisms for carriers in nanoscale systems and their analogs in cold atoms in waveguides.  He has proposed ways to simulate various mesoscopic transport processes with cold atoms, which can be used to study and understand mechanisms that are hard to access in electronic systems. Working in close collaboration with experimentalists, Dr. Das is examining the effects of nonlinearity and coherence in transport processes as well as the transition from quantum to classical behavior.  His current focus is on examining topological and gauge structures in quantum transport of ultracold atoms. 

Dr. Das's research has ongoing funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which he has used to develop and support an active undergraduate research program, with several students being trained every year in the methods of theoretical physics research, as well as learning to write computer programs for simulations.  This has lead to students being co-authors in publications in top peer-reviewed physics journals and giving presentations at premier international physics conferences.  Students trained by Prof. Das have been accepted at prestigious REUs, including CERN Geneva, Caltech and Cornell University; several of them have gone on to pursue physics Ph.D.s in some of the best institutions in the world such as Cornell University, Brown University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.