"CAVITIES, 2D MATERIALS, AND SOME THOUGHTS ON SUPERCONDUCTIVITY"

By Marco Polini (University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy)

BIOGRAPHY:

Marco Polini graduated in Physics in 1999 from the University of Pisa (Italy) and received his Ph.D. in Physics in January 2003 from the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa, Italy). After his PhD he worked with Prof. Allan MacDonald at the University of Texas at Austin as a postdoctoral researcher and then returned to Pisa for a Researcher permanent position at the National Research Council. He subsequently held a Senior Scientist position at the Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology, IIT) in Genoa (Italy), where he led the “Theory and technology of 2D materials” group (September 2015 – December 2019), and a Professor of Physics position (April 2017 – March 2022) at the School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Manchester (UK).

He is currently a Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the Department of Physics of the University of Pisa and an external collaborator of the IIT. He has co-authored more than 210 publications in peer-reviewed international journals including Physics Today, Science, Nature Physics, Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Photonics, Nature Communications, and Physical Review Letters and the book “Many-body Physics in Condensed Matter Systems” (Edizioni della Normale, Pisa, 2006). His publications have received more than 23.000 citations for a Hirsch index of 65 (Google Scholar). His recent interests include cavity QED of correlated electron systems, quantum effects in energy storage (quantum batteries), electron hydrodynamics, and topological and quantum plasmonics.

ABSTRACT:

Photon-mediated effective electron-electron interactions (EEIs) have been known for a long time [1] to yield one of the harshest forms of non-Fermi-liquid states of matter which have been unravelled so far. These EEIs have been recently revisited in the context of cavity-QED of strongly correlated electron systems. In particular, it has been predicted [2] that two-dimensional electron gases placed inside Terahertz cavities display an exotic form of superconductivity, known in the field of high- superconductors as “Amperean” superconductivity [3]. In this talk I will discuss some recent unpublished results [4] on the possibility to engineer Amperean superconductivity in a graphene sheet embedded in an optical cavity, highlighting in particular subtleties associated with the difference between longitudinal and transverse electromagnetic fluctuations. If time allows, I will also spend a few words on the possibility to reach a high- superconducting state using slow and weakly damped acoustic plasmons [5].

REFERENCE(S):

1. M. Yu. Reizer, Phys. Rev. B 39, 1602 (1989).
2. F. Schlawin, A. Cavalleri, and D. Jaksch, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 133602 (2019).
3. See e.g. P. A. Lee, Phys. Rev. X 4, 031017 (2014) and references therein.
4. A. De Pasquale, G. M. Andolina, F. M. D. Pellegrino, I. Torre, F. H. L. Koppens, and M. Polini, (to be published).
5. T. Farajollahpour, A. Habibi, I. Torre, F. H. L. Koppens, and M. Polini, (to be published).