Condensed Matter Seminar

More than a century after the discovery of dissipationless charge transport in mercury below 4.2K, the search for room-temperature superconductivity continues. Record-high transition temperatures above 200K have been achieved but only under the extreme conditions of ultra-high pressure or, possibly, intense transient light fields. The leading candidate for realizing ambient superconductivity have remained strong electronic correlations, an established ingredient in unconventional high-temperature copper-based superconductivity. Iron-based compounds have emerged as entirely distinct species, in which superconductivity can be refined to a single atomic layer and enhanced to occur at 65K by interfacial interactions. Here, we will consider the influence of many-body effects on the low-energy charge transport and band structure in iron-based superconductors and parent compounds in order to shed light onto the microscopic mechanism of superconducting pairing in this novel class of materials.