Superconductivity, Diamagnetism, Mean Inner Potential and Charge Asymmetry of Condensed Matter

Condensed Matter Seminars

Speaker: Jorge Hirsch
Date & Time: December 3, 2015, 2:00 - 3:00
Location: Hennings 318
Local Contact: George Sawatzky
Intended Audience: Graduate

Each of the four concepts in the title is related to its nearest neighbor concept(s): this is well understood and generally agreed upon. What is not generally agreed upon is that these four concepts are all intimately related to each other, on the contrary, this is at odds with the conventional understanding of superconductivity (BCS). There is in fact very little that is generally agreed upon in the field of superconductivity these days, where the number of new materials classes, new observed phenomena, and proposed new models and unconventional mechanisms has proliferated like mushrooms after the rain in recent years. I will present a unifying view of superconductivity for all materials involving the four concepts in the title [1,2], discuss materials examples and experimental observations that support this point of view, and propose that many observed properties that are generally believed to be intimately related to the superconductivity of particular materials classes but are not shared by other materials classes may in fact be unimportant ”side effects”.

[1] J.E. Hirsch, Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids 67, 21 (2006)
[2] J.E. Hirsch, Annalen der Physik 526, 63 (2014).