RUI: Magnetic and Superconducting Properties of Nickel Borocarbides

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This individual investigator award provides support to a researcher at an undergraduate institution for a project that seeks a better understanding of the competition between the low temperature states of novel metals and the ways in which these states coexist with each other. The primary focus is on the interplay between superconductivity, magnetism, and heavy fermion behavior in the rare-earth nickel-borocarbides. The competition between superconductivity and the charge density wave state of alpha-uranium will also be studied. Thermal expansion and magnetostriction measurements will be the primary techniques used to probe this competition. Resistivity and magnetoresistance measurements will provide additional information. The results of these new measurements will be combined with existing specific heat measurements in a Gruneisen analysis characterizing the energy scales of these materials and their origins. This research will advance our understanding of metals while training students drawn from a diverse pool of talented undergraduates at Occidental College, a liberal arts college in metropolitan Los Angeles. In the broadest sense, the goal of this individual investigator project is to discover how to design materials with specific, pre-determined properties, such as powerful magnets for motors and generators, or high-temperature superconductors for efficient, economical power transmission. The immediate goal is to better understand how superconductivity interacts with magnetism and other metallic states. The project will focus on a series of compounds in which superconductivity and magnetism co-exist. Superconductivity and magnetism are usually mutually exclusive so the study of such materials can provide important information about these phenomena. This research will advance our understanding of metals while training undergraduates drawn from a diverse pool of talented undergraduate students at Occidental College, a liberal arts college in metropolitan Los Angeles. These students will be well-prepared for graduate school and for joining the technical workforce.