S. James Allen, received a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from M.I.T. in 1965.  He was appointed Professor of  Physics and Director of the Quantum Institute at UCSB in 1991, and recently served as Chair of Physics, 2000-05. In 2009 he became emeritus and was appointed Research Professor of Physics.   Prior to that, he had been a member of technical staff at Bell Labs, where he was recognized as a “Distinguished Member of Technical Staff”,  had availed himself of a Bell Labs supported leave at the Royal School of Mines , Imperial College London and later joined Bellcore, as District Research Manager of Solid State Physics Research.  He has also been an adjunct professor at Northeastern University and at Princeton University.   Professional service has included election as Member at Large of the Executive Committee of the Division of Condensed Matter Physics of the A.P.S. where he served on the Strategic Planning Committee and on the Nominating Committee.  He has also served on the Editorial Board of Physical Review.  In 1995 he won a Humboldt Science Award, is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

 He has co-authored more than 200 publications on transport and terahertz excitations in semiconductor nano-structures, hot-electron dynamics, high temperature superconductivity, magnetism, superionic conductors, metal physics, clathrate inclusion compounds,protein dynamics and complex oxide heterostructures. He holds three patents.  Current research focuses on terahertz dynamics in semiconductor quantum structures far from equilibrium, novel plasmonic terahertz detectors, spin wave logic devices, terahertz dynamics of bio-polymers in solution and 2D Mott systems in complex oxide heterostructures.

Current Research Efforts

Emergent phenomena at Mott interfaces   Optical conductivity of 2-D Mott systems at oxide heterostructures

Spin wave logic devices:                 All spin logic devices based on spin waves in ferromagnetic films patterned as interferometers, local magnetization controlled switching and scattering from spin torque devices.

Plasmonic terahertz detectors:         Voltage tuned plasmon resonances are exploited for narrow band terahertz detectors and are developed for terahertz spectroscopic focal plane arrays.

Terahertz biopolymer dynamics:      Measuring the terahertz dynamics of proteins in solution by direct absorption spectroscopy and optical/terahertz sum and difference frequency generation in proteins in solution.