CPM Seminar

The enormous effort in the physics and chemistry of transition metal oxides that was a byproduct of the discovery of high Tc superconductivity in the last decade has led to the discovery of several classes of materials whose ground states couple novel spin and charge correlations. These materials include collective magnetic singlet systems, which undergo spin-Peierls and spin-Peierls-like phase transitions. In addition, recent work on the superconducting Cu-oxides themselves, suggest inhomogeneous "stripe" ordering may be relevant at low temperatures. I will discuss these developments with reference to recent x-ray scattering work on singlet ground state systems CuGeO₃ and NaV₂O₅, as well as the high Tc superconductor Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O₈.

Wednesday, January 17th 2001, 15:30
Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, room 115