Title: Associate Professor of Materials, Dept. of Materials and Nuclear Eng, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-2115
Education:
B. S. in Physics, with a minor in Chemistry, University
of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras, 1977.
M. S. in Physics, University of Puerto Rico at
Río Piedras, 1979.
B. Mus. in Performance, Conservatory of Music
of Puerto Rico, 1979.
Ph.D. in Physics (Condensed Matter Physics),
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1985.
Research/Education Interests:
Prof. Martínez-Miranda is an expert in the analysis and characterization of thin films and buried interfaces, using X-ray scattering and glancing incidence scattering techniques. Her areas of interest include liquid crystal films and confined structures, metal oxide films and nanostructured materials. At present she is extending her research to include microbeam analysis of confined materials. Prof. Martínez-Miranda joined the faculty at the University of Maryland in 1995. She has been a Research Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, a Faculty Fellow at the Naval Research Laboratory and at Sandia National Laboratory and a NSF Visiting Professorship for Women awardee at Kent State University and the Liquid Crystal Institute.
Prof. Martínez-Miranda has been in charge of the design and development of the junior level materials laboratory in the recently approved undergraduate program in Materials at UMCP. She has designed or co-designed and tested two-thirds of the exercises used in this course. She is faculty outreach co-coordinator of UMCP's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. In this capacity, she coordinates the Summer Research program for undergraduates and has developed a number of tutorial units for middle and high school students. She is the Spring 1999 Wayne State University Martin Luther King Memorial Visiting Professor in Physics.
Selected Publications:
"Structural Studies of Partially Confined Smectic Liquid Crystal Films: Evidence for Double Confinement as a Function of Size and Depth", L. J. Martínez-Miranda, submitted to PR E, 1999.
" Nanostructural Characterization of Amorphous Diamondlike Carbon Films", M. P. Siegal, D. R. Tallant, L. J. Martínez-Miranda, D. L. Overmeyer and R. L. Simpson, submitted to PR B, 1999.
"A depth profile study of the structure and strain distribution in chemically grown Cu films on AlN", Y. Li, L. J. Martínez-Miranda, G. M. Chow and L. K. Kurihara, NanoStructured Materials, 12, 653-656 (1999).
"Thickness dependence of the glass-liquid crystal buried interface structure", L. J. Martínez-Miranda, Y. Hu and T. K. Misra, Molec. Cryst., Liq. Cryst., 329, 121-127 (1999).
"Time Evolution of the Structure of Sm-C* Films", L. J. Martínez-Miranda, Y. Shi and S. Kumar, Molec. Cryst. Liq. Cryst., 326, 41-48 (1999).
"Alternative Approach to electroless Cu Metallization of AlN by a nonaqueous polyol process", G. M. Chow, L. K. Kurihara, D. Ma, C. R. Feng, P. E. Schoen and L. J. Martínez-Miranda, Appl. Phys. Lett, 70, 2315 (1997).
"X-ray Study of Substrate-Induced Alignment of a Smectic-A Liquid Crystal," E. Smela and L. J. Martínez-Miranda, Liq. Cryst., 14, 1877-1883, 1993.
"A Study of Strain in Thin Epitaxial Films of Yttrium Silicide on Si(111)", Michelle F. Siegal, M. P. Siegal, W. R. Graham, J. J. Santiago-Avilés and L. J. Martínez-Miranda, J. Appl. Phys, 75, 1517 (1994).
"X-ray Structural Studies of Epitaxial Yttrium Silicide on Si(111)", L.J. Martínez-Miranda, M. P. Siegal, P.A. Heiney, J.J. Santiago-Avilés and W.R. Graham, J. Mater. Res., 9, 1434-1440, 1994.
"Effect of Substrate Preparation on Smectic Liquid Crystal Alignment II: Further Results and Modeling", E. Smela and L. J. Martínez-Miranda, J. Appl. Phys.,77, 1923 (1995).