THURSDAY, June 4 Note special date & time
Condensed Matter Physics Seminar, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM, 107 Downs
"Dirac Materials," Dr. Alexander Balatsky, Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Lab. More info: CMP

Abstract:
Recently a new single layer material -- graphene has been discovered. This is a material where Dirac points in the fermionic spectrum lead to very unusual transport properties and impurity states. We will argue that these properties are not unique to graphene and in fact are a direct consequence of a Dirac fermionic excitation spectrum. Strong similarities with d-wave superconductors, superfluid 3He, p-wave superconductors and other materials exhibiting Dirac electronic spectrum offer an unifying perspective on these materials. We argue that this discovery signifies the emergence of a new class of materials, that could be called *Dirac Materials*, the class where nontrivial properties emerge as a direct consequence of Dirac spectrum of excitations. We will focus on *local* electronic properties of graphene such as impurity states, Kondo effect recently observed in Manoharan's group, and inelastic tunneling spectroscopy. Time permitting we will illustrate broad similarities with cuprate superconductors.


Sponsored by: Professor Nai-Chang Yeh