Published on 27 May 2015
News

Understanding and controlling the electronic properties of transition metal oxides: a physicist's perspective - June 3, 2015

Antoine Georges, Professor at the Collège de France, Chair of Quantum Condensed Matter Physics and Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique

Transition metal oxides possess remarkable electronic properties, such as superconductivity at high critical temperatures (copper oxides), or the Mott metal-insulator transition (vanadium or nickel oxides, for example). After giving an overview of some of these properties and functionalities, I will attempt a state-of-the-art review of the tools available to the physicist to understand them. I will show how some recent theoretical developments bring the physicist's methods closer to the chemist's vision. One of the current challenges is the control of these phenomena, for which the development of heterostructures or the selective control of certain structural degrees of freedom by light pulses are promising avenues
by light pulses.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015, 11 a.m