Physics Colloquium, November 1, 2005

High-Tc superconductivity: summing up

D.N. Basov

University of California, San Diego

Discovered nearly 2 decades ago, high-Tc superconductors have consolidated a large fraction of the condensed matter community in the search for the mechanism leading to the transition temperatures as high as 160 K. In this talk I will overview recent developments in the experimental studies of high-Tc cuprates focusing on the results obtained by means of infrared spectroscopy. The crucial advantage of this technique is that one can get insights into the key characteristics of the superconducting state through a variety of model independent sum rules. Specifically, our group at UCSD has employed new analysis based on sum rules to examine the energy scales associated with the superconducting condensate and with the so-called pseudogap state. We believe that the sum rule results may be instrumental in narrowing down the field of plausible microscopic scenarios of high-Tc superconductivity.

3.30 p.m., Robert Smith Seminar Room 1080, PRB

Refreshments served at 3:00 p.m., Atrium, PRB