Superconductivity – HS 2014

This course provides an introduction to superconductivity, covering both experimental as well as theoretical aspects.
After a historical overview and a presentation of the basic phenomena we will discuss Ginzburg Landau theory, BSC theory, Josephson effects, and end with a short introduction to unconventional (including high-Tc) superconductivity.

Lecture materials

Literature

• "Introduction to Superconductivity" by M. Tinkham
• "Superconductivity of Metals and Alloys" by P. G. de Gennes
• "Fundamentals of the Theory of Metals" by A. A. Abrikosov
• "Superconductivity: Fundamentals and Applications" by W. Buckel and R. Kleiner (original in German, available online through the ETH library)

Slides and Notes

• Slides of lecture 1 (slides, various sources)
• Notes on Ginzburg criterion (handwritten)
• Notes on Goldstone and Anderson-Higgs (handwritten)
• Notes on the Cooper problem (handwritten)
• Notes on BCS mean field (handwritten)
• Notes on high Tc (handwritten)
• Recent talk by S. Sachdev on high Tc (slides)
• Slides about Josephson qubits by Georg Winkler (slides)
• Slides about ARPES by Christian Matt (slides)
• Slides about unconventional superconductivity (slides, various sources)

Articles

• Particle physics in a superconductor by A. Pashkin and A. Leitenstorfer, Science 345, 1121 (2014)
• Doping a Mott insulator: Physics of high-temperature superconductivity by P.A. Lee, N. Nagaosa, and X. Wen, Rev. Mod. Phys. 78, 17 (2006)
• Review on Superconducting Materials by R. Hott et al. arXiv:1306.0429 (2013)
• Conventional superconductivity at 190 K at high pressures by A.P. Drozdov et al. arXiv:1412.0460 (2014)

Special lectures and events

• 22.10.2014, from 10:00-10:30 Jenny Hoffman (see events below) will give a short introduction to her research and answer your questions
• 22.10.2014, 16:15 in HPV G4: Jenny Hoffman speaks at the Zurich Physics Colloquium about "Topological Materials at the Nanoscale" (recommended)
• 26.11.2014, during the exercise class: Lab visit with Jakob Kanter and Philip Moll in Bertram Batloggs group.

Exercises

The exercise class is an integral part of the course where we cover additional examples and look at certain aspects of the lecture in more detail. We do both analytical and numerical calculations. We may also discuss some papers.

The exercise sheets will be available online or distributed in class on demand. You have one week to work on them on your own, then they are discussed during the exercise class at the "discussion date". There will be no solutions handed out.

All students are invited to make additional suggestions for the exercise class.

As there are no sample solutions online, this overview gives some literature references for the exercises, if applicable and possible:
Exercise Sheet Overview

Exercise sheets and discussion dates

Codes for exercise 5

• Python code using explicit Euler and implicit midpoint rule, courtesy of Dominik Schildknecht
• Python code using the built-in function odeint
• Matlab code using the built-in function bvp4c