Event
Eli Burstein Lecture in Materials Science: "Designing Superconductivity: Using nanostructures to manipulate interactions in a complex system"
Nadya Mason, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
One of the most fundamental scientific questions is how the macroscopic properties of matter emerge from complex interactions of microscopic constituents. In this talk, I will discuss a “bottom-up” approach to studying collective effects in matter via coupled nanostructures. In particular, I will show how large arrays of superconducting islands fabricated on normal metal films can act as model, tunable superconducting systems. By changing the size and configuration of the islands, we can tune the parameters relevant to superconductivity, such as disorder and dissipation. I will discuss electrical transport measurements of these systems, including showing how we can control the phase transition, study dissipative behavior, and even create unusual superconducting states.