Research focuses on studying optical properties of materials, including large-scale computational modeling based on fundamental physics. Our goals are to improve the predictive modeling capacity with regard to optical properties of materials. Our long-term objective is to develop better theories for the interactions of real materials with radiation.

Past work has mainly focused on x-ray absorption, photoemission, resonant inelastic scattering and fluorescence, visible and ultraviolet absorption in semiconductors and insulators, diffuse scattering modeling, diffraction, and coherence. Topics considered recently also include far-infrared absorption (vibrational), effects of compression and strain on optical properties, studies of electronic excitations in solids by other means (e.g., inelastic electron scattering), elastic electromagnetic scattering by nanostructures, photon correlations in waveguides, and nonlinear optics. Collaborations with other researchers, both inside and outside of NIST, are encouraged.