Optics of Quantum Materials

当某些金属在低温下失去电阻时，就会发生超导现象。超导体被用于医院的核磁共振成像仪和需要高磁场的研究。超导材料需要昂贵的冷却费用，长期目标是找到一种在室温下具有超导性的材料。这一发现将彻底改变电力工业。室温超导体的超高磁场将降低核聚变反应堆的尺寸和成本，有望提供无限量的无污染电力，我们将期待未来“电力”一词被“超导”取代。最近，米卡希尔·埃雷米茨（Mikahil Eremets）发现，在钻石尖端之间压缩到200万大气压的液态氢具有超导性，其超导性始于破纪录的零下68摄氏度，但仍低于室温。我们与Eremets、理论家Jules Carbotte和Pascale Roy的同步加速器小组合作，利用光谱学研究这种材料及其独特的超导特性。我们的第一批研究结果发表在2017年9月的《自然物理学》上。Eremets在2013年发现的300万大气压下的金属氢是另一种潜在的高温超导体，我们想用同步加速器来研究。目前，我们是唯一开发出超高压下超导体研究技术的团队。我们计划将这种能力扩展到更高的压力，在这个过程中，我们可以在金属氢中建立超导性。***最后，一个完全不同的项目是利用金属片上的孔图案开发光学器件。它们被广泛应用于毫米波天文学，是暑期学生的理想项目。该项目每年将培养一名本科生。

Superconductivity happens when certain metals lose their electrical resistance at low temperatures. Superconductors are used in hospital MRI machines and in research where high magnetic fields are required. Superconducting materials require expensive cooling and a long term goal is to find a material that is superconducting at room temperature. Such a discovery would revolutionize the electrical power industry. The ultra-high magnetic fields of a room temperature superconductor would lower the size and cost of a fusion reactor promising a boundless supply of pollution-free electrical power and we will look forward to a future where the word electricity is replaced by superconductivity. A recent step towards room temperature superconductivity was the discovery by Mikahil Eremets of superconductivity of liquid hydrogen sulphide compressed between diamond tips to a pressure of 2 million atmospheres with superconductivity starting at a record breaking temperature of -68 degrees Celsius, but still short of room temperature. We formed a collaboration with Eremets, the theorist Jules Carbotte and the synchrotron group of Pascale Roy to use optical spectroscopy to study this material and its unique superconducting properties. Our first results were published in Nature Physics in September 2017. Metallic hydrogen under 3 million atmosphere pressure, discovered by Eremets in 2013 is another potential high temperature superconductor that we want to work on using the synchrotron. At this point in time we are the only group that has developed techniques to study superconductors at ultra high pressures. We plan to extend this capability to even higher pressures in the course of this grant to the point where we can establish superconductivity in metallic hydrogen.***Finally, a completely different project is the development of optical devices using patterns of holes in a metal sheet. They are widely used in millimeter wave astronomy and form an ideal project for summer students. One undergraduate per year will be trained in this program.