This work in theoretical condensed matter physics and materials research will cover the fields of semiconductors, transition metals, surfaces, chemisorption systems, solid-solid interfaces and superlattices, defects, electronic structure of novel materials, materials under high pressures, high Tc superconductors, and many-body effects in solids. The major objective is to explain and predict the properties of real materials at the microscopic level from first principles. Several different approaches are employed depending on the systems and properties under investigation. Structural and bonding properties are obtained using the ab initio pseudopotential density functional formalism: excited-state properties are calculated using a many-body Green's function approach; groundstate properties of strongly correlated electronic systems are calculated using a quantum Monte Carlo approach. A host of solid state properties are obtained with these methods. Among these are: structural information, phase stability, quasiparticle energies, optical and photoemission spectra, density of states, charge density distributions, surface and interface characteristics, phonon dispersion relations, electron-phonon and phonon-phonon interaction parameters, magnetic properties, superconducting transition temperatures, and a variety of other solid state phenomena. Some specific new directions are planned in the areas of ceramics, layered and hard materials, quasiparticle energies and excitation spectra of solids, surfaces and interfaces, clusters, quantum Monte Carlo calculations of solid state properties, and total dielectric functions.
