physics

R. J. Dwayne Miller

R. J. Dwayne Miller is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand R. J. Dwayne Miller rather than just read about it. In short: R. J.

Key takeaways

R. J. Dwayne Miller belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect R. J. Dwayne Miller to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of R. J. Dwayne Miller from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

R. J. Dwayne Miller is a Canadian chemist and a professor at the University of Toronto. His focus is in physical chemistry and biophysics. He is most widely known for his work in ultrafast laser science, time-resolved spectroscopy, and the development of new femtosecond electron sources that facilitates ultrafast electron diffraction experiments. His research has enabled real-time observation of atomic motions in materials during chemical processes and has shed light on the structure-function correlation that underlies biology.

Early life and education Miller was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 1978, he received a B.Sc. in chemistry and immunology at the University of Manitoba where Bryan R. Henry was his advisor. He completed his Ph.D. in chemistry at Stanford University in 1983 under the supervision of Michael D. Fayer. His thesis work focused on energy transport in model systems of photosynthesis and is titled Part I, Electronic excited state transport and trapping in disordered systems; Part II, Laser induced ultrasonics.

Academic career Following graduation, Miller gained a faculty position at the University of Rochester and immediately took a 12-month leave to do postdoctoral research in solid state physics as a NATO science fellow at the Laboratoire de Spectrometrie Physique (renamed to Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique in 2011) at the Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France under the direction of Hans Peter Trommsdorff and Robert Romenstain. He returned to University of Rochester in 1984 as an assistant professor of chemistry. He was promoted to associate professor in 1988 and then full professor of chemistry and optics in 1992. In 1995, he moved back to Canada and relocated his research group to the departments of chemistry and physics at the University of Toronto. In 2006, he was appointed as a University Professor and later as a Distinguished Faculty Research Chair. From 2010-2014, R. J. D. Miller was the director of the Max Planck Group, Centre for Free Electron Laser Science/DESY, University of Hamburg. From 2014-2020, he was the co-founding director of Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg, Germany. In 2023, he was inducted as a fellow of the Royal Society and has been a fellow of Royal Society of Canada and the Royal Society of Chemistry since 1999 and 2016, respectively. He is also a member of the Chemical Institute of Canada, Canadian Association of Physicists, American Physical Society, and Optical Society of America.

Science outreach Beyond his scientific work, Miller is dedicated to the promotion of science education through outreach to school children. He founded and is a board member of Science Rendezvous, an annual science festival that aims to expose general public to science and technology.

Bibliography

Selected papers Duan HG, Jha A, Chen L, Tiwari V, Cogdell RJ, Ashraf K, Prokhorenko VI, Thorwart M, Miller RJD. Quantum coherent energy transport in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex at low temperature. PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 119 (49) :e2212630119, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1063/4.0000159 Zhipeng Huang; Meghanad Kayanattil; Stuart A. Hayes; R. J. Dwayne Miller. Picosecond infrared laser driven sample delivery for simultaneous liquid-phase and gas-phase electron diffraction studies. STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS, 9 :054301, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1063/4.0000159 Gourab Chatterjee, Ajay Jha, Alejandro Blanco-Gonzalez, Vandana Tiwari, Madushanka Manathunga, Hong-Guang Duan, Friedjof Tellkamp, Valentyn I. Prokhorenko, Nicolas Ferré, Jyotishman Dasgupta, Massimo Olivucci and R. J. Dwayne Miller. Torsionally broken symmetry assists infrared excitation of biomimetic charge-coupled nuclear motions in the electronic ground state. CHEMICAL SCIENCE, 13 :9392-9400, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1039/D2SC02133A Chiwon Lee, Alexander Marx, Günther H. Kassier & R. J. Dwayne Miller. Disentangling surface atomic motions from surface field effects in ultrafast low-energy electron diffraction. COMMUNICATIONS MATERIALS, 3 (10), 2022. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-022-00231-9 Zhang, M., Zhang, S., Xiong, Y., Zhang, H., Ischenko, A., Vendrell, O., Dong, X., Mu, X., Centurion, M., Xu, H., Miller, RJD., Li, Z.. Quantum state tomography of molecules by ultrafast diffraction. NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, 12 :5441, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25770-6 P. Mehrabi, R. Bücker, G. Bourenkov, H.M. Ginn, D. von Stetten, H.M. Müller-Werkmeister, A. Kuo, T. Morizumi, B.T. Eger, W.-L. Ou, S. Oghbaey, A. Sarracini, J.E. Besaw, O. Pare´-Labrosse, S. Meier11, H. Schikora, F. Tellkamp, A. Marx, D.A. Sherrell, D. Ax. Serial femtosecond and serial synchrotron crystallography can yield data of equivalent quality: A systematic comparison. SCIENCE ADVANCES, 7 (12) :eabf1380, 2021. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abf1380 Michiel de Kock, Sana Azim, Gunther Kassier, and R. J. Dwayne Miller. Determining the radial distribution function of water using electron scattering: A key to solution phase chemistry. THE JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS, 153 :194504, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0024127 Hong-Guang Duan, Ajay Jha, Xin Li4, Vandana Tiwari, Hanyang Ye, Pabitra K. Nayak, Xiao-Lei Zhu4, Zheng Li, Todd J. Martinez, Michael Thorwart, R. J. Dwayne Miller. Intermolecular vibrations mediate ultrafast singlet fission. SCIENCE ADVANCES, 6 (38) :eabb0052, 2020. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/38/eabb0052 Cheng, S., Chatterjee, G., Tellkamp, F., Lang, T., Ruehl, A., Hartl, I., Miller, R.J.D.. Compact Ho:YLF-pumped ZnGeP2-based optical parametric amplifiers tunable in the molecular fingerprint regime. OPTICS LETTERS, 45 (8) :2255–2258, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.389535 Krawczyk, K.M., Sarracini, A., Green, P.B., Hasham, M., Tang, K., Paré-Labrosse, O., Voznyy, O., Wilson, M.W.B., Miller, R.J.D.. Anisotropic, Nonthermal Lattice Disordering Observed in Photoexcited PbS Quantum Dots. THE JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C, 125 (40) :22120-22132, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.1c07064

Books Miller, R. J. Dwayne; McLendon, George L.; Nozik, Arthur J.; Schmickler, Wolfgang; Willig, Frank (1995). Surface Electron Transfer Processes. Wiley VCH. ISBN 978-0471185536.

See also John Polanyi Arthur Nozik Ultrafast electron diffraction Time resolved crystallography Two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy Two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy Laser surgery

References

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with R. J. Dwayne Miller

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what R. J. Dwayne Miller claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to R. J. Dwayne Miller before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about R. J. Dwayne Miller ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of R. J. Dwayne Miller

In research: R. J. Dwayne Miller appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses R. J. Dwayne Miller in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: R. J. Dwayne Miller is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1956 births, 20th-century Canadian scientists, 21st-century Canadian scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for R. J. Dwayne Miller outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “R. J. Dwayne Miller” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study R. J. Dwayne Miller in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what R. J. Dwayne Miller means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain R. J. Dwayne Miller out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is R. J. Dwayne Miller in simple terms?

R. J.

Why does R. J. Dwayne Miller matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study R. J. Dwayne Miller?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on R. J. Dwayne Miller.