Optics + Photonics Research Area Affiliations

• Ultrafast Optics
• Quantum Optics

Research Summary

Dr. Flannery's interests center on atomic and molecular processes in ionized gases, three-body recombination at thermal and ultracold energies, cold collisions, collisional stark mixing, and classical-quantal dynamical correspondences.

Biographical Sketch

Martin Raymond Flannery earned both his degrees, B.Sc. with first class honors in mathematics and Ph.D. in theoretical physics, from The Queen’s University of Belfast in 1961 and 1964. He has held faculty positions at Queen’s University, Harvard University and Georgia Institute of Technology where he is now Regents’ Professor. He was a visiting Fellow at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics at Boulder, Colorado and the Institute for Theoretical Atomic and Molecular Physics, Harvard and a Guest Professor at the University of Innsbruck. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow and Chartered Physicist of the Institute of Physics, London and an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy. His research is the theory of atomic and molecular collision processes, recombination and ultracold Rydberg plasmas. He has published over 160 refereed papers and review articles in atomic and molecular physics journals and presented over 50 invited papers at national and international scientific conferences. He served on the Executive Board of the Gaseous Electronics Conference and on the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry, the Atomic and Molecular Physics Handbook (Springer Press) and the Springer Book Series on Atomic, Optical and Plasma Physics. He was also Divisional Associate Editor of The Physical Review Letters. He is currently a member of the of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Harvard University.

He is the recipient of various Prizes from Sigma-Xi, “for best paper” in 1974, “for best Ph. D thesis advisor and outstanding research” in both 1975 and in 2001, and “for sustained research” in 1992. He received the Distinguished Professor Award from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1995 “in recognition of his sustained scholarship, leadership, achievement and excellence in teaching, research and service.”

He was elected in 1997 an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy, in recognition of his distinguished services in the Section of Science. The Queen’s University of Belfast in 1998, conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Science, D.Sc. degree (honoris causa) for ``his distinction as a scientist.” He is the recipient of the 2001 award of ``Alumnus Illustrissimus” of St. Columb’s College, Derry.

He is the recipient of the 1998 Will Allis Prize awarded by the American Physical Society ``for advancing the understanding of recombination processes; in particular for developing a microscopic theory of three-body ionic recombination; and for his novel applications of classical and quantum mechanical methods to the dynamics of atomic, molecular and ionic systems.” He is the recipient of the 2002 Jesse W. Beams Award of the American Physical Society (Southeastern Section) ``for his pioneering, seminal, influential and enduring contribution to Atomic and Molecular Collision Physics.” He is the recipient of the 2002 Sir David Bates Prize awarded by the UK Institute of Physics for ``his distinguished contributions to the field of theoretical atomic physics and, in particular, for his studies of recombination processes with applications to astrophysics and plasma physics.”