Serratia marcescens colony, several days old, grown under high-nutrient, moderately soft agar conditions. The colony is compact and secretes a red pigment called prodigiosin.

Condensed matter explores the properties of materials in their solid, liquid and glassy states. It studies their structures and dynamics as well as their mechanical, electrical and magnetic properties together with the associated phase transitions.

In this field, we ask questions like:

What is crystal structure of ice? Why is water different from ice? How are the electrical properties of semiconductors controlled? What is a high temperature superconductor?

Current research includes the rheology of soft solids, size effects in ferroelectrics, the elasticity of physical gels, and phase transitions in thin ferromagnetic films.