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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.

 

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