Departmental Colloquium
- Title
- Strands of Superconductivity at the Nanoscale
- Guest Speaker
- Dr. Paul Goldbart
- Guest Affiliation
- Georgia Tech, School of Physics
- Guest Affiliation Url
- https://www.physics.gatech.edu/user/paul-goldbart
- Host
- Chad Fertig
- When
- Thursday, October 20, 2011 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
- Location
- Auditorium, Physics 202
- Details
-
Superconducting circuitry can now be fabricated at the nanoscale, e.g., by depositing suitable materials on to single molecules, such as DNA or carbon nanotubes. I shall discuss various themes that arise when superconductivity is explored in this new regime, including the thermal passage over and quantum tunneling through barriers by the superconducting condensate as a whole, as well as a strange, hormetic effect that magnetism can have on nanoscale superconductors. I shall describe nanoscale superconducting quantum interference devices, which are subtly sensitivity to magnetic fields and patterns of supercurrent -- features that hint at uses of superconducting nanocircuitry, e.g., in mapping quantum phase fields and testing for superconducting correlations in novel materials. I shall also mention settings in which superconducting nanosamples show a particular sensitivity to their geometry or topology, and shall conclude by touching on two emerging themes: the interplay between graphene and superconductivity, and what nanoprobes might be revealing about exotic forms of superconductivity.