Professor Sridhar's principal areas of research are Quantum Chaos and Superconductivity.

Quantum and Electromagnetic Chaos: The field of Quantum Chaos is still in its infancy, but is currently a very active area of research. The main thrust of Professor Sridhar's program is to explore, via electromagnetic experiments, the manifestations of classical chaos in wave mechanics. Some significant results have emerged, such as first direct observation of "scars" which were found theoretically in 1984 but were observed experimentally by him for the first time in 1991. More recently this work has led to an experimental verification of the mathematical theorem, "can you hear the shape of a drum". Professor Sridhar's group is now looking at the role of chaos and disorder in organizing quantum wave functions. In addition to addressing very fundamental issues in Quantum Mechanics, the work also has potential for applications in electromagnetic systems.

High Tc Superconductivity: The high temperature superconductors which were discovered in 1986 still continue to pose major challenges to scientists. Not only is the mechanism for superconductivity not known, but the nature of the superconducting state and the dynamics of vortices continue to be debated intensely. Professor Sridhar and his associates study the microwave response of superconductors, both for understanding the nature of superconductivity, the dynamics of vortices and for practical applications in microwave devices.

• "Negative Refraction and Left-handed Electromagnetism in Metallic Microwave Photonic Crystals", P. Parimi, W.T. Lu, P. Vodo, J. Sokoloff, and S. Sridhar, Physical Review Letters, 92, 127401, (2004)
• "Refraction of Electromagnetic Energy for Wave Packets Incident on a Negative Index Medium is Always Negative", W.T. Lu, J.B.Sokoloff and S.Sridhar, Physical Review E, 69, 26604 (2004)
• "Imaging by flat lens using negative refraction" Parimi PV, Lu WT, Vodo P, Sridhar S. Nature, 426, 404 (2003)
• "Fractal Weyl laws for chaotic open systems" Lu WT, Sridhar S, Zworski M. Physical Review Letters, 91, 154101 (2003)
• "Intrinsic Multiscale Structure and Dynamics in Novel Electronic Oxides", eds. A.R.Bishop, S.R.Shenoy and S.Sridhar, World Scientific, 2003

• W. Kennedy, Ph.D. 1990. Presently Asst. Res. Physicist, Argonne National Lab
• Dong-Ho Wu, Ph.D. 1991. Presently Res. Associate, University of Maryland
• Yan-Zhen Wei, Ph.D. 1992. Presently Res. Assistant Professor, Tufts University