Welcome to the Shpyrko Research Group at UCSD!

Shpyrko Group, May 2016
Shpyrko group, May 2016

Shpyrko Group, March 2013

Past group photos

We are an experimental condensed matter physics group in the Department of Physics at the University of California, San Diego. Our group studies nanoscale structural dynamics - splitting our interest between hard and soft condensed matter systems.

We are particularly interested in developing novel coherent x-ray scattering techniques to probe dynamics in a variety of condensed matter systems, ranging from electronic and magnetic phases (charge-, spin-, orbital ordered systems, magnetic thin films and nanostructures, metal-insulator transitions and new high-temperature superconductors) to soft matter including fluids, colloids, nanoparticles, polymers and glasses as well as behavior of materials in nanoscale confinement.

Our in-house experimental capabilities include Dynamic Light Scattering and Light Microscopy laboratories, Atomic Force (AFM) and Electrostatic Force (EFM) Miroscopes, Microfocus X-ray Rotating Anode system, He flow cryostat for microscopy, Sputtering Deposition System (co-owned with Prof. Eric Fullerton).

Our main research, however, makes use of a number of National Laboratory User Facilities, including the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne, PETRA III in Germany, the Linac Coherent Light Source at Stanford, SACLA and SPring-8 in Japan, the National Synchrotron Light Source-II at Brookhaven, the Advanced Light Source at Berkeley, and other facilities in the US and Europe.

Our group's research is generously supported by the following funding agencies: Department of Energy (Basic Energy Sciences), National Science Foundation (CAREER), Air Fource Office of Scientific Research, Argonne LDRD and Hellman Foundation.

News Updates:


Future is bright: These new research directions are especially exciting in view of recent developments in coherent fourth generation synchrotron sources, such as X-ray Free Electron Lasers and Energy Recovery Linacs.


Selected Publications:

"Orbital Domain Dynamics in Magnetite below the Verwey Transition" Roopali Kukreja, Nelson Hua, Joshua Ruby, Andi Barbour, Wen Hu, Claudio Mazzoli, Stuart Wilkins, Eric E. Fullerton, and Oleg G. Shpyrko, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 177601 (2018)

"Nucleation of dislocations and their dynamics in layered oxide cathode materials during battery charging" A. Singer, M. Zhang, S. Hy, D. Cela, C. Fang, T. A. Wynn, B. Qiu, Y. Xia, Z. Liu, A. Ulvestad, N. Hua, J. Wingert, H. Liu, M. Sprung, A. V. Zozulya, E. Maxey, R. Harder, Y. S. Meng & O. G. Shpyrko, Nature Energy 3, 641–647 (2018)

"Nonequilibrium Phase Precursors during a Photoexcited Insulator-to-Metal Transition in V2O3" Andrej Singer, Juan Gabriel Ramirez, Ilya Valmianski, Devin Cela, Nelson Hua, Roopali Kukreja, James Wingert, Olesya Kovalchuk, James M. Glownia, Marcin Sikorski, Matthieu Chollet, Martin Holt, Ivan K. Schuller, and Oleg G. Shpyrko. Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 207601 (2018)

"Domain morphology, boundaries, and topological defects in biophotonic gyroid nanostructures of butterfly wing scales" Andrej Singer, Leandra Boucheron, Sebastian H. Dietze, Katharine E. Jensen, David Vine, Ian McNulty, Eric R. Dufresne, Richard O. Prum, Simon G. J. Mochrie and Oleg G. Shpyrko, Science Advances 2 (6), 1600149 (2016)

"Topological defect dynamics in operando battery nanoparticles" A. Ulvestad, A. Singer, J. N. Clark, H. M. Cho, J. W. Kim, R. Harder, J. Maser, Y. S. Meng,and O. G. Shpyrko, Science 348 (6241), 1344-1347 (2015)


You are welcome to read more about our research directions and facilities we use, browse our publication list, check out our research in the news, and you can contact us here.

x-ray speckle reveals nanoscale spin dynamics
X-ray Speckle reveals nanoscale spin dynamics