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CM THEORY SEMINAR<br>Insight Through Computation: Understanding and Predicting the Physics of Unconventional Superconductors

Thursday, April 10, 2014
12:00 AM
1400 Chemistry

Unconventional superconductors such as the copper-oxide and iron-based compounds represent some of the most challenging problems in condensed matter physics. Driven by the physics of strong electronic interactions, they do not fit the standard BCS model of superconductivity, and their description has eluded mainstream methods based on density functional theory (DFT). In this talk, I will describe how sophisticated many-body methods in conjunction with high-end computing have helped us make important progress in this field, and how it has been and will be instrumental on the path towards a comprehensive theory of high-temperature superconductivity. In particular, I will discuss what these calculations tell us about the electronic pairing mechanism that underlies superconductivity in these systems and the various factors that determine the transition temperature. I will conclude with a summary of how this insight can guide us in the search for room-temperature superconductors.

Speaker:
Thomas Maier