Alan Kaiser

Biography

Alan Kaiser received his MSc in Physics and BA in Economics from Victoria University of Wellington, and his PhD in Solid State Physics from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London. He has been a research assistant at Stanford University, Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max-Planck Institut für Festkörperforschung, Stuttgart, Royal Society (U.K.) Bursar at the University of Leeds, and McCarthy Fellow at the University of Michigan. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1998 and was awarded the Shorland Medal in 2009.  His main research interest is electronic conduction and related properties of novel materials, including graphene, carbon nanotubes, conducting polymers, superconductors and glassy metals.

Research Interest

Current research interests are in understanding the electronic properties of novel materials (especially those with nanoscale dimensions), focusing on how the electronic conduction process occurs in different types of material.  The materials we investigate include: Graphene: We are investigating the conductance and related properties of graphene (sheets of carbon with thickness of only one atom) in collaboration with German experimentalists. Carbon nanotubes and cupric oxide thin films and nanowires:  Properties of thin transparent films of carbon nanotubes, and cupric oxide thin films and nanowires, have been measured by Shrividya Ravi and Chris Bumby and are being analyzed to understand these unusual materials