T_cSUH Special Seminars

Friday, October 03, 2008

Room 102, University of Houston Science Center

12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

Superconductivity has always attracted considerable attention from people in various fields due to its striking quantum phenomena. The recent discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in the iron-based pnictide materials has made a significant impact in the field of condensed matter physics. The superconducting transition temperature has been quickly raised to about 55K and this novel superconductor does not belong to the same categories as those of known superconductors such as copper oxide high-Tc superconductors and conventional BCS-type superconductors. In this talk, I will give a very brief introduction to the recent research progress as well as a perspective on these new iron-based superconductors, in particular, the theoretical and experimental efforts toward cracking the mechanism.

Prof. Yanfeng Chen is currently the department chair and the endowed Changjiang Professor of the Department of Materials Science at Nanjing University in China. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Northwest Polytech University at Xi'an, China, in 1984, 1987, and 1990, respectively. He was a postdoctoral researcher in the Solid State Microstructure Lab at Nanjing University between 1990 and 1993, and then became a faculty member there, beginning as an associate professor in 1993 and being appointed as a professor in 1997. He has been the chair of the department since 1995. Prof. Chen's research has spanned over very broad areas from the ferroelectric thin flms to piezoelectric and acoustic multilayered structures and superlattices, with more than 110 refereed articles in journals such as Phys. Rev. Lett., Appl. Phys. Lett., Nano Letters, etc. He has also delivered a number of invited talks at international and national conferences and has received a number of awards.