Quantum Materials – Aug 11

Humanity's quest to understand matter has led to society-shaping technological breakthroughs. For example, the solid-state transistor underlies virtually all of modern computation. In complex quantum systems, exotic properties emerge which do not simply follow from the physical laws governing individual particles. A classic example is the phenomenon of superconductivity, which took scientists nearly 50 years to explain. Beyond useful applications, the study of quantum mechanical properties of crystalline materials — i.e., “condensed matter physics" — is a rich playground for exploring nature's deepest laws.

Our speaker, Arielle Little, is a PhD candidate in the UC Berkeley Physics Department.