Title:

Strands of Superconductivity at the Nanoscale


Speaker:

Prof. Paul M. Goldbart
Director, Institute for Condensed Matter Theory, 
Dept of Physics,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Abstract: 

Superconducting circuitry can now be fabricated at the nanoscale by depositing suitable materials on
to individual molecules, such as DNA or carbon nanotubes.  In this talk I shall examine various themes that
arise when superconductivity is explored in this new regime, including thermal barrier crossing and quantum
tunneling by the superconducting condensate, as well as the impact of magnetism on nanosuperconductivity.  I
shall focus on a fascinating class of circuits: nanoscale superconducting quantum interference devices (or
n-SQUIDs).  After describing how they are made, I shall pay particular attention to the electrical resistance
of these devices and, especially, its sensitivity to magnetic fields and patterns of supercurrent.  These
features hint at possible uses of n-SQUIDs, such as for mapping the quantum phase of superconducting order and
testing for superconducting correlations in novel materials and settings.