Superconductivity is a fascinating quantum mechanical phenomenon with applications that include the lossless transmission of electrical power, levitating trains, making huge magnetic fields, and detecting the tiniest magnetic fields. Conventional superconductivity was discovered in 1911 but the theoretical explanation did not come until 1957. High temperature superconductivity, discovered in 1986, is unconventional and we still don't have a theory that explains it. There are dozens of other types of unconventional superconductors that we cannot explain. In my lecture, I will explore superconductivity and the bizarre behaviors of quantum materials, showing some of the exciting applications. I will explain in simple terms what we do know, and give a perspective on how much we still have to learn. Superconductivity reminds me of the universe itself: we use it every day, it's very useful, and mostly, we don't know very much about it

Biography:
Laura H. Greene is Chief Scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and Francis Eppes Professor of Physics at Florida State University. She has a distinguished career studying superconductivity and strongly-correlated electron systems. She was one of the pioneers of high-temperature superconducitiy in the YBaCuO system and has studied them by Andreev reflection (PCAR) spectroscopy, demonstrated of Andreev bound states and a wide range of symmetry breaking phenomena, including time-reversal symmetry breaking. Her recent work include quantum mechanics on a macroscopic level, strongly correlated materials, PCAR experiments in heavy fermion superconductor systems.

Prof. Greene is Past-President of the American Physical Society. She is a champion for diversity and is active in promoting equal rights for women and minorities in education and in the work place, particularly in the hard sciences and the engineering professions. She is a co-founder of the Forum on Outreach and Engaging the Public (FOEP), and a member of Committee on Informing the Public, both parts of the American Physical Society.

Laura Greene's many honors include the Maria Goeppert-Mayer award, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Physics (UK), and of the American Academy for Arts and Sciences. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

On Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Greene_(physicist)

Professional home page: https://nationalmaglab.org/component/maglabdata/?view=personnel&id=Laur…

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