Colloquium- Prof. Sergey Savrasov, UC Davis
Physics Colloquium Lecture
November 17, 2021
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Location
Via Zoom- https://uic.zoom.us/rec/share/8lHQrft-00oJFTQMldcqmO9lGGLKmW1XFtQtGPx-x3JXuE4u4Qx-6Lz8tSSgkSpF.Gt9SrQeMzKXsee8Q
Address
Chicago, IL 60612
Calendar
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Title: Where to find good conductorsAbstract: Although, conventional conductors such as copper or aluminum are widely used in our everyday live, power losses associated with heat during the electricity transmission amount to about 8-10% globally. One way to overcome this problem is of course to find room temperature superconductivity but this so far has proven to be very difficult. A new class of topological quantum materials has recently attracted a lot of interest; they behave as an insulator or semimetal in the bulk but whose surface contains conducting states meaning that the electrons can primarily move along the surface of the material. In this talk I will overview some of the most exotic properties in these systems such as massless Dirac fermions in topological insulators and Fermi arcs in Weyl semimetals. Their robustness to the disorder can potentially lead to a high conductance of the surface electrons whose physics will be illustrated in theoretical simulations on models. Recent transport studies of NbAs nanobelts will be discussed to highlight the opportunities in designing better conductors with nanostructured topological Weyl semimetals.
Date posted
Sep 10, 2021
Date updated
Dec 8, 2021