High-Temperature Superconductivity: Taming Serendipity
Listen now
Description
Abstract: Just past this centenary of the discovery of superconductivity, the design of new and more useful superconductors remains as enigmatic as ever. As high-density current carriers with little or no power loss, high-temperature superconductors offer unique solutions to fundamental grid challenges of the 21st century and hold great promise in addressing our global energy challenge in energy production, storage, and distribution. The recent discovery of a new class of high-temperature superconductors has made the community more enthusiastic than ever about finding new superconductors. Historically, these discoveries were almost completely guided by serendipity, and now, researchers in the field have grown into an enthusiastic global network to find a way, together, to predictively design new superconductors. I will share our general guidelines and hope to convey the renewed passion we share in this international pursuit. I will also share some of our advances in understanding the still-unknown mechanisms of high-temperature superconductivity by probing strong electronic correlations with quasiparticle scattering spectroscopy. Dr. Greene is Swanlund Professor of Physics and Center for Advanced Study Professor of Physics, Frederick Seitz Materials Research Lab, Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Department of Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Co-Associate Director, Center for Emergent Superconductivity Energy Frontier Research Center. Her lecture was given on April 5, 2012.
More Episodes
Abstract: The physical limit for the number of pixels per color channel per frame in an optical imager is approximately equal to the aperture area in square microns. While this limit is essentially achieved in megapixel scale cell phone cameras, the limit of 100 megapixels for cm apertures, 10...
Published 10/18/12
Abstract: The fate of an ultrashort laser pulse propagating in air depends crucially upon its peak power. Below a critical value, Pcr, group velocity dispersion and beam diffraction combine to rapidly reduce the pulse intensity. On the other hand, if P is less than Pcr, a completely different...
Published 10/18/12
Abstract: Organic semiconductor materials offer the potential of low-cost and flexible displays and lighting solutions, some of which have already made it to the marketplace. Despite this, much of the underlying optical physics remains poorly understood and hinders progress towards better and...
Published 10/18/12