Physics 602: Graduate Solid State Physics II Adventures in Quantum Materials: A Selected Survey of Great Papers from Last Year and Last Century (and maybe even Last Week!) |
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Spring
2021 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. |
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Overview: Societal developments of human history are deeply connected with the discovery of new materials with novel properties. For example our current information technologies are made possible by the development of silicon transistors. However current limitations on computing call for new materials manifesting entangled quantum physics; here entanglement denotes the absence of any local quantities describing the individual quantum state. With tremendous advances in materials synthesis and the emergence of quantum information, there is great opportunity for the cross-fertilization of ideas towards the identification and characterization of new quantum materials, both for their fundamental properties and towards practical applications. In this course we will explore outstanding questions posed by quantum materials through discussion of key experimental and theoretical results from the 20th century to breakthroughs of today. The course will meet once a week, Thursday 10:00 am - 12:00 pm, and will take a reading/seminar format; I will provide background information/context as needed. Each session we will discuss a few (2-4) papers on a specific topic with the aim to link to research areas of ongoing interest. Possible themes to be explored include a) the observation of antiferromagnetism and the subsequent emergence of quantum spin liquids and other novel spin states b) BCS theory of superconductivity, its experimental confirmation and more recently materials that demand further theoretical understanding c) the observation of the fractional Quantum Hall effect, the identification of topological insulators and the challenges and promises of twisted bilayer materials d) the opportunities presented by machine learning in strongly correlated quantum materials e) quantum circuitry: where are we now towards realizing concepts of quantum information? f) fractional charge and composite order....how realizable are these concepts (and do they have applications?)? (Syllabus to be developed "organically" after first organizational meeting depending on class interests) |
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