Please visit Dr. Plummer's Web site for more detailed information.


Research Interests

The physics and chemistry of surfaces and thin films, concentrating on the interplay between electronic and geometric structure and lattice dynamics. Experimental techniques have included electron and photon spectroscopes, second harmonic generation, scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy, and low energy electron diffraction and x-ray scattering (structure).


Research Highlights

Direct extraction of the Eliashberg function for electron-phonon coupling: A case study of Be(1010), (Junren Shi, S.-J. Tang, Biao Wu, P. T. Sprunger, W. L. Yang, V. Brouet, X. J. Zhou, Z. Hussain, Z.-X. Shen, Zhenyu Zhang, and E. W. Plummer), submitted to PRL.ArXiv:cond-mat/0308055v1

Surface Phase Transition Induced by Electron Mediated Adatom-Adatom Interaction, (Junren Shi, Wu, X. C. Zie, E. W. Plummer, and Zhenyu Zhang), Phys. Rev. Letters. ArXiv:cond-mat/0303434v1

Ferromagnetism in Cobalt-iron Alloy Nanowire Arrays on W(110), (J. P. Pierce, J. Shen, and E. W. Plummer), Applied Physics Letters, 81, 1890 (2002).

Tuning the Surface Kohn Anomaly of H-saturated Mo(110) by alloying with Re, (M. Okada, B. Flach, E. Hulpke, W. Steinhögl, and E.W. Plummer, Surface Science Letters, 498, L78 (2002).

Jahn-Teller Phonon Anomaly and Dynamic Phase Fluctuations in La_0.7Ca_0.3MnO₃, (Jiandi Zhang, Pengcheng Dai, J. A. Fernandez-Baca, E. W. Plummer, Y. Tomioka, and Y. Tokura), Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 3823 (2001).

Ferromagnetism Stabilized by Lattice Distortion at the Surface of the p-wave superconductor Sr₂RuO₄, (R. Matzdorf, Ismail, Jiandi Zhang, T. Kimura, Y. Tokura, Z. Fang, K. Terakura, and E. W. Plummer), Science, 289, 746 (2000).

Defect-Mediated Condensation of a Charge Density Wave, (H. H. Weitering, J. M. Carpinelli, A. V. Melechko, Jiandi Zhang, M. Bartkowiak and E. W. Plummer), Science, 285, 2107-2110 (1999).

Anomalously Large Thermal Expansion at the (0001) Surface of Beryllium without Interlayer Anharmonicity, (K. Pohl, J.-H. Cho, K. Terakura, M. Scheffler, and E. W. Plummer), Phys. Rev. Letters, 80, 2853 (1998).

Giant Surface Friedel Oscillations, (P. T. Sprunger, L. Petersen, E. W. Plummer, E. Laegsgaard, and F. Besenbacher), Science, 275, 1764 (1997).

Direct Observation of a Surface Charge Density Wave, (J. M. Carpinelli, H. H. Weitering, E. W. Plummer and R. Stumpf), Nature, 381, 398 (1996).

Phonon Dispersion at the Be(0001) Surface (J. B. Hannon, E. J. Mele, and E. W. Plummer), Phys. Rev. B.53, 2090 (1996).

Anomolous Interplanar Expansion at the (0001) Surface of Be, (H. L. Davis, J. B. Hannon, K. B. Ray, and E. W. Plummer), Phys. Rev. Lett., 68, 2632 (1992).

Resonant surface second-harmonic generation: Surface states on Ag(110), (L. E. Urbach, K. L. Percival, J. M. Hicks, E. W. Plummer, and H.-L. Dai) Phys. Rev. B45, 3769 (1992).

Surface Plasmon Dispersion in Simple Metals, (K.-D. Tsuei, E. W. Plummer and P. Feibelman), Phys. Rev. Lett., 63, 2256 (1989).

Experimental Band Structure of Na (E. Jensen and E.W. Plummer), Phys. Rev. Lett. 55, 1912 (1985).

Influence of Multielectron Excitations on the Band Structure of Adsorbate Overlayers (H.J. Freund, W. Eberhardt, D. Heskett, and E.W. Plummer), Phys. Rev. Lett. 50, 768 (1983).

The Effects on Photoemission of the Spatially Varying Photon Field at a Metal Surface (H.J. Levinson, E.W. Plummer and P.J. Feibelman), Phys. Rev. Lett. 43, 952 (1979).

Observation of Nondipole Electron Impact Vibrational Excitations: H on W(100) (W. Ho, R.F. Willis and E.W. Plummer), Phys. Rev. Lett. 10,1463 (1978).

Surface States on Tungsten (E.W. Plummer and J.W. Gadzuk), Phys. Rev. Lett. 25, 1493 (1970).

Field-Emission Studies on Electronic Energy Levels of Adsorbed Atoms (R.D. Young and E.W. Plummer), Phys. Rev. B1, 2008 (1970).

Educational Background

B.A. (1962), Lewis and Clark College
Ph.D. (1969), Cornell University


Professional Experience

September 1967 - June 1970	National Research Council Post Doctoral Fellow at National Bureau of Standards
June 1970 - 1973	Assistant Section Chief for Surface Physics in the Far Ultraviolet Section at NBS
July 1973 - July 1977	Associate Professor of Physics, University of Pennsylvania
July 1977 - 1988	Professor of Physics, University of Pennsylvania
July 1988 - December 1992	William Smith Professor of Physics, University of Pennsylvania
November 1990 - December 1992	Director of the Laboratory for Research on Structure of Matter
March 1992	Visiting Distinguished Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
December 1992 -	Distinguished Professor of Physics, University of Tennessee Distinguished Scientist, ORNL
March 2001 -	Director of the Tennessee Advanced Materials Laboratory