Later, he completed his post-doc at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) working with Herbert A. Mook[7] and became the staff scientist there.
[9] Dai's research primarily focuses on experimental condensed matter physics, using neutrons as a probe to study correlated electron materials.
He clarified the microscopic origin of the annealing process, studied the electron-magnetic excitation coupling and discovered resonance in the electron-doped high-transition-temperature superconductor Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4−δ.
[16] Over the past 15 years, along with his research group, Dai has made contributions to describe the interplay between magnetism and superconductivity and has published more than 150 papers in the field.
[17] Afterwards, he mapped out the electronic phase diagram of these materials[18] and carried out the first spin wave measurements to determine the effective Heisenberg Hamiltonian for the parent compounds of three families of iron-based superconductors.