Our research concerns phase transitions and a variety of strongly non-equilibrium phenomena, with applications to materials science and biology. We are interested in the basic aspects of the structural glass transition in intermetallic compounds, the metal-insulator transition, strongly correlated electron fluids, and triboelectricity. Our biomedicine-related project focuses on the poorly understood phenomenon of mesoscopic aggregation in protein solutions, during which long-lived domains of a metastable protein-rich phase form, in conflict with standard notions of thermodynamics. Also, we have developed a free-energy based method of machine learning, with potential applications to structure prediction for complex inorganic solids and beyond.

Link to Prof. Lubchenko’s textbook “Basic Notions of Thermodynamics and Quantum Mechanics for Natural Sciences”