Gregory S. Boebinger: Lab Director

Greg Boebinger.

Gregory S. Boebinger received bachelor's degrees in physics, electrical engineering and philosophy in 1981 from Purdue University. With a Churchill Scholarship, he traveled to the University of Cambridge for one year of research under Professor Sir Richard Friend, studying the temperature dependent structural changes in one-dimensional organic superconductors.

Boebinger received his Ph.D. in physics in 1986 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he held Compton and Hertz Foundation fellowships. His thesis research utilized high magnetic fields and ultra-low temperatures to study the fractional quantum Hall effect with Nobel Laureates Horst Störmer and Dan Tsui.

He spent a year as a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow in Paris at the Ecole Normale Supérieure studying other quantum behaviors of electrons in quantum wells. In 1987, Boebinger joined the research staff at Bell Laboratories and established a unique pulsed magnetic field facility for physics research on semiconductors, f-electron compounds and superconductors in magnetic fields up to 60 tesla. For this research, he was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1996.

In 1998, Boebinger became head of the pulsed magnet laboratory at Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the three campuses of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. There he continued his research on high-temperature superconductors, using the intense pulsed magnetic fields to suppress superconductivity.

In 2004, Boebinger moved to Florida State University to become director of the Magnet Lab, with responsibility for the lab's programs at all three campuses: Florida State University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the University of Florida. His research continues to focus on high-temperature superconductivity and he maintains laboratories and close collaborations with colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Boebinger has a strong commitment to interpreting science for students and the general public. In addition to his many scientific publications, he has written articles designed for mainstream audiences in both Physics Today and Scientific American and given public lectures all over the country. He has been interviewed and demonstrated magnetic levitation on both the History and Discovery channels. For these activities he was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007.

Greg Boebinger can be reached at (850) 644-0851 or gsb@magnet.fsu.edu.