Objective
"The origin of ""high-temperature"" superconductivity is definitely one of the most elusive topics in modern solid-state physics. The twenty years that followed the discovery of unprecentedly high critical temperatures in copper oxides have been dominated by a dychotomy between the ""standard""; superconductors, normal metals in which electron-phonon interaction drives the superconducting pairing, and ""high-temperature""; superconductors, complex compounds in which superconductivity is most likely of electronic or magnetic origin. Even if the number of proposals in this regard is enormous, we believe that at the present stage we can move one big step forward. The positive circumstances are the appearance of a new player in the field, the iron-based materials discovered in 2008, and the development of theoretical tools able to deal with the main physical ingredients of the different supeconducting materials. The aim of this project is to overcome the electron-phonon/electronic dualism in the ""glue"", and prove that the key to high-temperature superconductivity is the anomaly of the normal state. More precisely, high-temperature superconductivity is the way in which the pathologies of anomalous metallic states are ""healed"". In this project we will build a theoretical approach to study ab initio superconductors beyond Migdal-Eliashberg theory, namely a combination of Density Functional Theory and Dynamical Mean-Field Theory extended to the superconducting state. In this way we will put the above physical idea on solid ground, and we will first show that it is actually realized in the already known superconductors by comparing normal state and superconducting states.The results obtained in the process can be used in a second step to design new superconductors, either in the same families as the existing ones and in principle even in other yet unknown families."
Fields of science
Keywords
Call for proposal
ERC-2009-StG
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
ERC-SG - ERC Starting GrantHost institution
34136 Trieste
Italy