Colloquium

Understanding high temperature superconductivity: are we there yet?

Thomas Timusk    
McMaster University
Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Higgins 310, 4 pm

High temperature superconductivity was discovered over 20 years ago but the physics behind this strange phenomenon is not understood, and a large amount of activity is still being directed to the solution of this intricate puzzle. I will show that while the underlying ground state remains a mystery, high temperature superconductivity can be well understood by the use of theoretical techniques from the old BCS superconductors in combination with powerful new spectroscopic techniques, wide band optical reflectance, angle resolved photo emission and neutron scattering.

This work was done in collaboration with Jungseek Hwang, Ewald Schachinger and Jules Carbotte.