Using Disorder to Detect Local Order: Noise and Nonequilibrium Effects of Stripes in the Presence of Quenched Disorder

技术概述：该奖项支持强相关电子材料的理论研究和教育，重点是纳米级自发电子图案的形成。PI将开发新的方法来研究材料，明确地包括无序，并使用噪声、非平衡效应和介观几何来阐明局部电子图案。例如，条纹(就像其他提出的真实空间有序一样)可能对高温超导很重要，但它们只在铜酸盐超导体的子集中观察到，尤其是在条纹表现出真正的长程有序的情况下。然而，即使是无序或缓慢波动的条纹(许多标准的块状探测器看不见)也足以构成基于条纹的高温超导机制。PI最近将无序条纹问题映射到随机场伊辛模型。PI将使用这个模型的模拟来预测如何利用传输、扫描隧道显微镜、中子散射和磁滞等方面的噪声和非平衡效应来检测无序条纹。该奖项还支持PI？S继续发展她为在她所在机构的物理课程的研究生女性开始的指导计划，通过发起一个项目，邀请物理学研究生校友回到校园，与当前的物理学研究生和本科生讨论职业选择。PI还将继续访问当地的高中，讨论她的研究。这一推广活动将互动式超导演示与当代凝聚态研究的教育结合在一起。此外，拟议的工作将促进一名研究生和两名博士后的培训。非技术总结：该奖项支持旨在了解高温超导体研究中提出的基本问题的理论研究和教育。这些材料可以在足够低的温度下无损耗地传输电流。电子进入这种协同的超导性量子力学状态的物理机制一直是高温超导体研究的热点。这些材料在更高的温度下表现出超导电性，但仍远低于室温，这比人们在医学磁共振成像机中可能遇到的更好的超导材料要好得多。了解超导性的机制可能会导致发现或设计出在更高温度下表现出超导电性的材料，从而有可能实现经济的电力传输新技术和新的电子设备。这项研究将集中在这个谜题的一个有趣的方面，即在一些高温超导体的实验中观察到的电子特征量子力学性质的空间变化模式。该奖项还支持皮埃尔？S继续发展她为在她的家乡机构的物理项目中的研究生女性开始的指导计划，通过发起一个项目，邀请物理学研究生校友回到校园，与当前的物理学研究生和本科生讨论职业选择。PI还将继续访问当地的高中，讨论她的研究。这一推广活动将互动式超导演示与当代凝聚态研究的教育结合在一起。此外，拟议的工作将推进一名研究生和两名博士后助理的培训。

TECHNICAL SUMMARY:This award supports theoretical research and education on strongly correlated electron materials with a focus on spontaneous electronic pattern formation at the nanoscale. The PI will develop new ways of studying materials, explicitly including disorder, and using noise, nonequilibrium effects, and mesoscopic geometries in order to elucidate the local electronic patterns. For example, stripes (like other proposed real space orders) may be important for high temperature superconductivity, but they have only been observed in a subset of cuprate superconductors, most notably in cases where the stripes exhibit true long-range order. However, even disordered or slowly fluctuating stripes (invisible to many standard bulk probes) are sufficient for a stripes-based mechanism of high temperature superconductivity. The PI recently mapped the problem of disordered stripes to the random field Ising model. The PI will use simulations on this model to make predictions about how to detect disordered stripes using noise and nonequilibrium effects in, e.g., transport, STM, neutron scattering, and magnetic hysteresis.This award also supports the PI?s efforts to continue to develop the mentoring program she began for graduate women in the physics program at her home institution, by initiating a program to invite graduate physics alumnae back to campus to discuss career options with current graduate and undergraduate students in physics. The PI will also continue to visit local high schools to discuss her research. This outreach combines interactive hands-on superconductivity demonstrations with education about contemporary condensed matter research. In addition, the proposed work will advance the training of one graduate student and two postdoctoral associates.NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY:This award supports theoretical research and education aimed at understanding fundamental questions raised in the study of high temperature superconductors. These are materials that can transport electric current without loss at sufficiently low temperatures. The physical mechanism by which electrons enter this cooperative quantum mechanical state of superconductivity remains a subject of intense research for the high temperature superconductors. These materials exhibit superconductivity at much higher temperatures, but still well below room temperature, than the much better understood superconducting materials that one might encounter in a medical magnetic resonance imaging machine. Understanding the mechanism for superconductivity may lead to the discovery or engineering of materials that exhibit superconductivity at still higher temperatures, with the possibility of enabling economical new technologies for power transmission and new electronic devices. The research will focus on an interesting aspect of the puzzle, the spatially varying patterns of characteristic quantum mechanical properties of electrons that have been observed in experiments on some high temperature superconductors.This award also supports the PI?s efforts to continue to develop the mentoring program she began for graduate women in the physics program at her home institution, by initiating a program to invite graduate physics alumnae back to campus to discuss career options with current graduate and undergraduate students in physics. The PI will also continue to visit local high schools to discuss her research. This outreach combines interactive hands-on superconductivity demonstrations with education about contemporary condensed matter research. In addition, the proposed work will advance the training of one graduate student and two postdoctoral associates.