Superconductivity at ultra low-densities
COFFEE_KLATCH · Invited
Abstract
Superconductivity at an anomalously low density of charge carriers has been measured in doped SrTiO3 a long time ago. Only recently though, a number of new materials exhibiting superconductivity at similar densities were discovered, making the anomaly into a phenomenon. In the extremely dilute limit, the screening of Coulomb repulsion is poor, and moreover, the conventional phonon mechanism for superconductivity is completely irrelevant. This raises the question: how can these materials be superconducting? I will propose two different mechanisms for superconductivity in low-density metals, based on dynamically screened Coulomb interactions and fluctuations near a structural quantum critical point. I will then specifically focus on the former mechanism to explain superconductivity in the two lowest density examples: SrTiO3 and elemental bismuth.
*I acknowledge a scholarship by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation EPiQS initiative under grant no. GBMF4303
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Presenters
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Jonathan Ruhman
- Massachusetts Inst of Tech-MIT
- Condensed matter theory , Massachusetts Inst of Tech-MIT
- Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology