physics

Stephen Kevan

Stephen Kevan 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 Stephen Kevan rather than just read about it. In short: Stephen Douglas Kevan (born 1954) is an American condensed matter physicist who researches "surface and thin film physics; electronic structure and collective excitations at surfaces; nanoscale spatial and temporal fluctuations in magnetic and other complex materials". He served as the director of the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Stephen Douglas Kevan (born 1954) is an American condensed matter physicist who researches "surface and thin film physics; electronic structure and collective excitations at surfaces; nanoscale spatial and temporal fluctuations in magnetic and other complex materials". He served as the director of the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. He is also a faculty member on leave from the University of Oregon and served as division deputy for science at the ALS prior to his directorship.

Education Kevan graduated Summa cum Laude from Wesleyan University in 1976 with a B.A. in chemistry. In 1980 he earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, working with David Shirley, with a dissertation entitled Normal Emission Photoelectron Diffraction: a New Technique for Determining Surface Structure.

Career

Kevan worked at Bell Laboratories as a member of technical staff from 1980-1986. In 1986 he joined the faculty at the University of Oregon (UO) as an associate professor of physics; since 1991 he has held a full professorship. From 2007 to 2012, he was Physics Department Head and was also director of the University of Oregon Materials Science Institute. On leave from UO, Kevan previously served as Deputy Division Director for Science at the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has also served as associate editor and North American regional editor of the New Journal of Physics. Kevan's 30-year research career has focused on assuring the health and vitality of synchrotron light sources in the United States and abroad. He has contributed to condensed matter physics and physical chemistry through understanding how microscopic interactions and fluctuations produce novel material properties, particularly in the context of surface and thin film physics and exotic magnetism. His early Fermiology studies using photoemission verified experimentally the Fermi surface nesting mechanism for the spin density wave ground state of chromium and also contributed to understanding electronic instabilities in charge density wave materials and surface reconstructions. He also characterized the role of non-adiabatic damping of adsorbate vibrations and the spin-splitting of surface bands by the Rashba (spin-orbit) effect. More recently he has probed the microscopic-macroscopic connection, developing tools to study microscopic magnetic fluctuations using coherent soft x-ray beams. His current emphasis is to probe, on the scale of a few domains, intermittent dynamics and memory effects in field- and thermally driven magnetization reversal. Understanding the impact of newly discovered hidden symmetries on these cascades is important to understanding microscopic intermittency in a much broader context.

Honors 2017 Davisson–Germer Prize in Atomic or Surface Physics "for the development of angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) leading to groundbreaking surface science." 2001 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 1998 ALS Science Prize (the Shirley Prize) 1995 Fellow of the American Physical Society 1987 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship 1986 National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award 1986 IR 100 Award 1979-80 Amoco Graduate Fellowship 1978-79 University of California, Regents Fellowship 1976-77 University of California, University Fellowship 1976 Summa cum laude 1976 Phi Beta Kappa

Professional societies, affiliations, and service North American regional editor, New Journal of Physics Associate editor, New Journal of Physics 2008-2012 Chairperson, Advanced Light Source Science Advisory Committee, 2000-3 Chairperson, Advanced Light Source Users Executive Committee, 1988–90, 1999 Chairperson, Physical Electronics Conference Organizing Committee, 1993-6 Advanced Light Source Users Executive Committee, 1987–90, 1997–99 Institute for Defense Analysis, Defense Sciences Study Group, 1994–95

References

External links New Journal of Physics Kevan Homepage Advanced Light Source, LBNL

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Stephen Kevan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Stephen Kevan 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 Stephen Kevan 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 Stephen Kevan 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 Stephen Kevan

In research: Stephen Kevan 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 Stephen Kevan 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: Stephen Kevan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1954 births, 21st-century American physicists, American condensed matter physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Stephen Kevan 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.

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How to study Stephen Kevan in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Stephen Kevan 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 Stephen Kevan out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Stephen Kevan in simple terms?

Why does Stephen Kevan 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 Stephen Kevan?

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 Stephen Kevan.