Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
2 p.m., Thursday, October 14, 2004
Room 1201, Physics Building
Bose Metal
Philip Phillips
(University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Abstract: Bosons are thought to exist in two quite distinct ground
states: 1) localized in a Mott insulator or 2) condensed in a superconductor.
However, recent experiments point to a third intriguing possibility: a metal
with a finite resistivity at zero temperature. The Bose metallic phase appears
to be quite robust and is observed in a wide variety of thin films which should
nominally exihibit only insulating or superconducting phases. I will review the
standard theoretical framework used to understand the insulator-superconductor
transition, the recent experimental results and I will show quite generally how
bosons in the presence of disorder can form a metallic state. The metallic state
is rather weird, however. The phase degrees of freedom are glassy and it is the
low-lying degrees of freedom in the glassy state that mediate the metallic
state.
-
Host: Chris Lobb
Back to Condensed Matter Physics Seminar Home
Page