Plummer accepted a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Bureau of Standards (now called The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)) in the fall of 1967 working with Russ Young, and he stayed as a staff scientist until the fall of 1973.[1] His work included field electron emission and photoemission studies of surfaces. NIST selected his 1969 paper "Resonance Tunneling of Field-Emitted Electrons Through Adsorbates on Metal Surfaces", co-authored with J. W. Gadzuk and R. D. Young, for inclusion in the agency's centennial collection of its top 100 articles of the 20th century. This paper reported the first-ever single electron spectroscopy work in which electronic energy levels of atoms at the surface of a metal were observed.
In 1973, Plummer accepted a position in the Physics Department at the University of Pennsylvania[1][5]
where his work mainly focused on angle-resolved photoemission, momentum-resolved inelastic electron scattering and nonlinear optical response from surfaces. In 1988, he was appointed the William Smith Professor of Physics and in 1990 became the director of the NSF-funded Materials Research Laboratory (Laboratory for Research on Structure of Matter).[1]
In January 1993, Plummer moved to a joint position at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.[1] His research interests shifted to the study on an atomic scale of phase transitions in reduced dimensionality and surfaces of highly correlated electron systems such as transition-metal oxides. His primary research tool was variable-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy. In 2000, Plummer became the director of the Tennessee Advanced Materials Laboratory, a state-funded Center of Excellence.[1]
Plummer served on many national and international committees both to review existing scientific programs and to identify future directions for science and technology. Recent examples include: Chair of DOE-sponsored Workshop on "Soft X-Ray Science in the Next Millennium: The Future of Photon-In/Photon-Out Experiments, Pikeville, Tennessee, March 15–18, 2000, and Chair of DOE-BESAC (Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee) subpanel for the evaluation of the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS) at Argonne National Laboratory and the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) Manuel Lujan Jr. Neutron Scattering Center.[1] He also was a member of the DOE-Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, 2001–2004.[1]
He was the author of more than 400 refereed papers[6] and included in the list of the 1,000 Most Cited Physicists, a list compiled by the Institute for Scientific Information which is based on papers published between 1981 and 1997. But what Plummer was proudest of in his long and distinguished career was the mentoring of promising young scientists. This included advising or co-advising Ph.D. theses of 40 graduate students, hosting ~25 postdoctoral fellows, and assisting many young scientists in advancing their careers. He died in Baton Rouge on July 23, 2020.[6]
2001 Medard W. Welch Award by the American Vacuum Society.[9] The citation reads, "For the development of novel instrumentation, its use to illuminate new concepts in the surface physics of metals, and the mentoring of promising young scientists."
Plummer, E. W.; Eberhardt, W. (14 March 2007). "Angle-Resolved Photoemission as a Tool for the Study of Surfaces". Advances in Chemical Physics. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 533–656. doi:10.1002/9780470142691.ch8. ISBN9780470142691. ISSN1934-4791.
Eberhardt, W.; Plummer, E. W. (15 April 1980). "Angle-resolved photoemission determination of the band structure and multielectron excitations in Ni". Physical Review B. 21 (8). American Physical Society (APS): 3245–3255. Bibcode:1980PhRvB..21.3245E. doi:10.1103/physrevb.21.3245. ISSN0163-1829.
Allyn, C. L., Gustafsson, T., Plummer E. W., Orientation of Co adsorbed on Ni(100), Chemical Physics Letters, 47 (1): 127-132, 1977
Plummer, E. W.; Gustafsson, T.; Gudat, W.; Eastman, D. E. (1 June 1977). "Partial photoionization cross sections ofN2and CO using synchrotron radiation". Physical Review A. 15 (6). American Physical Society (APS): 2339–2355. Bibcode:1977PhRvA..15.2339P. doi:10.1103/physreva.15.2339. ISSN0556-2791.
Plummer, E. W.; Salaneck, W. R.; Miller, J. S. (15 August 1978). "Photoelectron spectra of transition-metal carbonyl complexes: comparison with the spectra of adsorbed CO". Physical Review B. 18 (4). American Physical Society (APS): 1673–1701. Bibcode:1978PhRvB..18.1673P. doi:10.1103/physrevb.18.1673. ISSN0163-1829.
Carpinelli, Joseph M.; Weitering, Hanno H.; Plummer, E. Ward; Stumpf, Roland (1996). "Direct observation of a surface charge density wave". Nature. 381 (6581). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 398–400. Bibcode:1996Natur.381..398C. doi:10.1038/381398a0. ISSN0028-0836. S2CID4324202.
Ho, W.; Willis, R. F.; Plummer, E. W. (29 May 1978). "Observation of Nondipole Electron Impact Vibrational Excitations: H on W (100)". Physical Review Letters. 40 (22). American Physical Society (APS): 1463–1466. Bibcode:1978PhRvL..40.1463H. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.40.1463. ISSN0031-9007.
