Vassiliy Lubchenko

Vassiliy (Vas) Lubchenko
Assistant Professor
	Office: 221L Fleming Phone: (713) 743-2781 Email: vas@uh.edu Education M.S., Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, 1994 M.S., Carnegie Mellon University, 1995 Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002 Honors, Fellowships, etc. Beckman Young Investigator Award, 2008 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003-2005 Hovorka Fellowship, University Fellowship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1996-1998

Research Interests

My research interests include strongly disordered and non-equilibrium systems, with specific applications to materials science, molecular electronics, and biophysics.
As part of the materials science project, we are developing first principles descriptions of inelastic deformation and fracture failure of glasses, amorphous solids in general, and other complex materials. Recent, critical developments in microscopic theories of glass formation are being used to describe visco-elastic properties of disordered media. Stress, corrosion, and radiation induced cracking are of basic and practical interest. The methods include analytic microscopic calculations, various stochasic models, and some computational modeling.
Another poorly understood aspect of the amorphous state is the nature of its electrical conductivity. The standard notions of electronic bands and quasiparticle concepts do not straightforwardly apply in these materials, necessitating radically new approaches. Our approaches are based on firmly understood structural aspects of the glass transition.
As part of our biophysical research agenda, we are investigating the microscopics underlying recently discovered puzzling behaviors of concentrated protein solutions, in collaboration with Peter Vekilov's group. In conflict with traditional nucleation theories, long-living aggregates of mesoscopic size are found in such solutions. In addition to the basic significance of this problem, it is also important in the context of formation of various solid protein aggregates, such as crystals and protein fiber arrays implicated in sickle cell anemia.

Publications

V. Lubchenko, "Charge and momentum transfer in supercooled melts: Why should their relaxation times differ?", J. Chem. Phys., 126, 174503 (2007); http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0701265.

V. Lubchenko, "A Universal Criterion of Melting", J. Phys. Chem. B, 110, 18779 (2006); cond-mat/0607009.

V. Lubchenko, "Quantitative Theory of Structural Relaxation in Supercooled Liquids and Folded Proteins", J. of Non-Cryst. Solids. 352, 4400 (2006).

V. Lubchenko and P. G. Wolynes, " Theory of Structural Glasses and Supercooled Liquids", Annu. Rev. Phys. Chem. 58, 235 (2007); cond-mat/0607349.

V. Lubchenko and R. J. Silbey, "Spectral Diffusion and Drift: Single Chromophore and En Masse", J. Chem. Phys. 126, 064701 (2007)

V. Lubchenko, R. J. Silbey, and P. G. Wolynes, "Electrodynamics of Amorphous Media at Low Temperatures", Mol. Phys. 104, 1325 (2006); cond-mat/0506735.

V. Lubchenko and P. G. Wolynes, "The Microscopic Quantum Theory of Low Temperature Amorphous Solids", to appear in Adv. Chem. Phys. 136, Chapter 3; cond-mat/0506708.

V. Lubchenko, P. G. Wolynes, and H. Frauenfelder, "The Mosaic Energy Landscapes of Liquids and the Control of Protein Conformational Dynamics by Glass-forming Solvents", J. Phys. Chem. B 109, 7488 (2005).

V. Lubchenko and R. J. Silbey, "Control of Chemical Equilibrium by Noise", J. Phys. Chem. B 108, 19852 (2004).

V. Lubchenko and R. J. Silbey, "Interrupted Escape and the Emergence of Exponential Relaxation", J. Chem. Phys. 121, 5958 (2004).

V. Lubchenko and P. G. Wolynes, "Theory of Aging in Structural Glasses", J. Chem. Phys. 121, 2852 (2004).

V. Lubchenko and P. G. Wolynes, "Barrier softening near the onset of nonactivated transport in supercooled liquids: implications for establishing detailed connection between thermodynamic and kinetic anomalies in supercooled liquids", J. Chem. Phys. 119, 9088 (2003).

V. Lubchenko and P. G. Wolynes, "The Origin of the Boson Peak and Thermal Conductivity Plateau in Low Temperature Glasses", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 100, 1515 (2003).

V. Lubchenko and P. G. Wolynes, "The Intrinsic Excitations of Amorphous Solids", Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 195901 (2001).

Yu. Dakhnovskii, V. Lubchenko, and R. Coalson, "Long Range Electron Transfer Driven by Two Lasers: Induced Irradiance", J. Chem. Phys. 109, 691 (1998).

Yu. Dakhnovskii, V. Lubchenko, and R. Coalson, "Multiphoton Absorption by Metal-Metal Long Distance Charge Transfer Complexes in Polar Solvents", J. Chem. Phys. 105, 9441 (1996).

Yu. Dakhnovskii and V. Lubchenko, "The Effect of Charged Impurities on a Glass Transition in a Polar Medium - Response", J.Chem. Phys. 105, 8981 (1996).

Yu. Dakhnovskii, V. Lubchenko and R. Coalson, "Light Absorption in Strongly Irradiated Long Range Polar Electron Transfer Systems", Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 2917 (1996).

Yu. Dakhnovskii, V. Lubchenko, and P. G. Wolynes, "False Tunneling" and Multirelaxation Time Nonexponential Kinetics of Electron Transfer in Glasses", J. Chem. Phys. 104, 1875 (1996).

Yu. Dakhnovskii and V. Lubchenko, "The Effect of Charged Impurities on a Glass Transition in a Polar Medium", J. Chem. Phys. 104, 664 (1996).