Welcome to the ExSiTE Lab (Experiments and Simulations in Thermal Engineering) at UVA, and research homepage for Professor Patrick E. Hopkins. Our group’s interests are in energy transport and coupled photonic interactions with condensed matter, soft materials, liquids, vapors, plasmas and their interfaces. We use various optical thermometry-based experiments to measure the thermal conductivity, thermal boundary conductance, thermal accommodation, strain propagation and sound speed, optical properties, and electron, phonon, vibrational and polaritonic scattering mechanisms in a wide array of bulk materials and nanosystems.
Group Member Publication: Congrats to Dr. Eric Hoglund for his first author publication in Nature, demonstrating evidence of unique vibrational modes in superlattices with STEM EELS that directly impact unique signatures in thermal conductivity and nonlinear optical properties.
Hoglund, E.R., et al., “Nanoscale phonon spectroscopy reveals emergent interface vibrational structure of superlattices,” Nature 601, 556-561 (2022). PDF (Supporting Information).

ExSiTE Group at IX Park in downtown Charlottesville, VA, Summer 2022
Front Row (L to R): Professor Patrick Hopkins, Dr. Ramya Mohan, Emma Tiernan, Md. Rafiqul Islam,
Dr. Eric Hogland, Milena Milich, Sara Makarem
Back Row (L to R): Scott Bender, Hunter Schonfeld, Will Riffe, Daniel Hirt, Will Hutchins,
Thomas Pfeifer
Not pictured: Md. Shafkat Bin Hoque

The ExSiTE Lab Extended Family at Lab Orientation Week: ExSiTE Lab, Laser Thermal, Inc., and Professor Ash Giri’s Lab from U. Rhode Island
Take a virtual tour of the ExSiTE Lab
Video and pictures courtesy of Tom Daly Photography