Public lecture 'Superconductivity then and now'

Superconductivity is one of those physics phenomena that strongly appeal to the imagination. It is counterintuitive, as befits a phenomenon based on quantum mechanics; and it has the feel of a promising technology in such applications as transporting electricity or levitating trains. Still, the electrical cables and the hovertrains do not yet exist, and one might wonder what has happened in the superconductivity field since its accidental, and in a sense premature, discovery in 1911.

In the lecture, an outline will be given of what we have learned in the last hundred-odd years, with five Nobel prizes along the way, and what fundamental questions are currently being researched; but also how science and technology have profited from superconductivity, and what still may be in store.

About the speaker

Jan Aarts is professor of experimental condensed matter physics at the Huygens-Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, which is part of the Leiden Institute of Physics. He works on various aspects of superconductivity, in particular on finding unusual phenomena in ‘hybrid’ devices, where a superconductor is combined with a material with different properties, for instance a magnet.

More information will follow soon.