A blog about condensed matter and nanoscale physics. Why should high energy and astro folks have all the fun?
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Workshop on new iron arsenide superconductors
This weekend is a big workshop at the University of Maryland on the new iron arsenide high temperature superconductors. Since it's not really my area, I didn't go. Anyone want to give a little update? Any cool news?
I didn't go, even though I have followed the field and have even done some experiments on new iron pnictides. I know some people that did go, I may ask them for their impressions.
My questions/comments - are pnictides the new cuprates and will be studied 20 years later, or are they more like MgB2 and in 2010 we will be talking about something else?
A few comments - 1. It is very difficult to break into the field without the infrastructure of pre-existing sample synthesis and characterization. All of the older high-Tc people already have it and can jump on the bandwagon quickly. The field is already very, very competitive. It's like graphene, everyone I know is doing it.
2. As a result of (1), the field is very difficult to follow. It's a full time job just to look through arxiv papers and summarize the results.
3. There are really two questions - just like with cuprates, the practical question was - can we push Tc higher - maybe roomT? which eventually got replaced by the question of: what is the mechanism for unconventional superconductivity?
I wonder how long will it take to move from first question to the second one as the main justification for this field. It is entirely possible that within a year or so we will quickly reach the same situation as we have now with cuprates - a lot of data and a lot of experiments, a lot of similarities with cuprates, but not much in terms of better understanding of mechanisms of high-Tc.
I didn't go, even though I have followed the field and have even done some experiments on new iron pnictides. I know some people that did go, I may ask them for their impressions.
ReplyDeleteMy questions/comments - are pnictides the new cuprates and will be studied 20 years later, or are they more like MgB2 and in 2010 we will be talking about something else?
A few comments -
1. It is very difficult to break into the field without the infrastructure of pre-existing sample synthesis and characterization. All of the older high-Tc people already have it and can jump on the bandwagon quickly. The field is already very, very competitive. It's like graphene, everyone I know is doing it.
2. As a result of (1), the field is very difficult to follow. It's a full time job just to look through arxiv papers and summarize the results.
3. There are really two questions - just like with cuprates, the practical question was - can we push Tc higher - maybe roomT? which eventually got replaced by the question of: what is the mechanism for unconventional superconductivity?
I wonder how long will it take to move from first question to the second one as the main justification for this field. It is entirely possible that within a year or so we will quickly reach the same situation as we have now with cuprates - a lot of data and a lot of experiments, a lot of similarities with cuprates, but not much in terms of better understanding of mechanisms of high-Tc.