Heike Pfau
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Physics·Early-career
Superconductors carry electricity with no loss. Today they power MRI magnets and help confine plasma in fusion reactors, but they only work when cooled with costly liquid nitrogen or helium.
- Fields
Physics
Materials Science
- Topics
unconventional superconductivity
topological superconductors
Majorana zero modes
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2031
What they work on
- Use uniaxial pressure cells to strain unconventional superconductors and measure their changing electronic structure with angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), to uncover the interactions that cause electrons to pair.
- Test whether strain gives quantum control over topological superconducting states in topological iron-based superconductors and superconducting Weyl semimetals, materials that may host Majorana zero modes.
- Map how strain tunes the electronic properties of strontium ruthenate, an unconventional superconductor, to link changes in lattice, charge and spin interactions to superconductivity.
More about the research
Reaching room-temperature superconductivity will require a detailed understanding of unconventional superconductors, in which the way electrons pair up is still unexplained. Related materials that are both superconducting and topological, meaning their electron states have a special, robust structure, may host Majorana zero modes. These are proposed building blocks for fault-tolerant quantum computers.
Why it matters
Superconductors that work without expensive cooling could improve power transmission and storage, sensors and medical imaging. Understanding unconventional pairing may guide the search for superconductors that work at higher temperatures. Controlling topological superconductors could also support Majorana-based qubits for more error-resistant quantum computers.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Derek Meyers
Oklahoma State University, OK·Physics·Early-career
Synthesize ruthenate heterostructures confined along atypical crystallographic orientations by pulsed laser deposition, adapting growth to stabilize the films despite polarity mismatch between stacked oxide layers.
Kenneth Burch
Boston College, MA·Physics
Determine whether the boundary mode observed in FeTeSe superconductors reflects true topological order by systematically varying device configurations and material parameters.
Vladyslav Kozii
Carnegie Mellon University, PA·Physics·Early-career
Develop and analyze theoretical pairing mechanisms for superconductors with very low electron density, determining when superconductivity can survive as carrier density approaches zero.
The school
Pennsylvania State University: 60 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 743 research doctorates a year.
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