James Rutledge

Professor of Physics

Experimental Condensed Matter

(714) 824-5141

Professor Rutledge earned his Ph. D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1978 and his B. S. degree from the same institution in 1971. He was a post-doctoral researcher at what was then known as Bell Telephone Laboratories from 1977 to 1979. He has been on the faculty at UCI ever since.

Professor Rutledge's research has included studies of the elementary excitations of two-dimensional helium films, elastic tunneling studies to probe superconductors driven far from thermodynamic equilibrium, and studies of inelastic tunneling processes by which metal-insulator-metal tunnel junctions emit light. Presently, he is collaborating with Professor Peter Taborek on an experimental program designed to study how surfaces modify bulk phase transitions, such as the liquid-vapor transition and melting. Most of these experiments exploit the unique experimental advantages of liquid helium to explore the general problem of phase transitions near a surface.

Representative Publications:

  • J. E. Rutledge and P. Taborek, "Prewetting Phase Diagram of 4He on Cesium", Phys. Rev. Lett. 69, 937 (1992)

  • D. Ross, P. Taborek, and J. E. Rutledge, "Bound States of 3He at the Helium Cesium Interface", Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 4483 (1995)

  • D. Ross, J. E. Rutledge, and P. Taborek, "Triple Point Dewetting Transitions of Helium Mixtures on Cesium", Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 2350 (1996)

  • D. Ross, J. E. Rutledge, and P. Taborek, "Superfluid Droplets on a Solid Surface", Science, 278, 664 (1997)