Superconductivity

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Robert Cava, Russell Wellman Moore Professor of Chemistry at Princeton. He describes his dual appointment in the Princeton Materials Institute and he reflects on the distinctions between being a solid state and not a condensed matter chemist. Cava recounts his childhood in Brooklyn and the opportunities that led to his undergraduate admission to MIT. He discusses his studies in materials science, and his decision to stay on for a PhD to study crystallography and the properties of sulfide materials under the direction of Bernie Wuensch. Cava describes some of the advances in ceramics that was important to him, and he discusses his work on sodium electrolytes at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. He explains his decision to join the Sold State Chemistry Research Department Bell Labs, and he describes some of the exciting developments in ceramic superconductors and why superconductivity is a window onto the complexity of solids. Cava discusses the significance of the YCBO collaboration, he describes the impact of the breakup of Bell Labs and his subsequent decision to transfer to Princeton. He explains some of the cultural shifts that allowed Princeton to become more involved in applied science, and he discusses what he learned about academic politics during his time as chair of the Department of Chemistry. Cava discusses his career-long search for new compounds and studying transition metal oxides, and he describes the many advances in thermoelectronics. At the end of the interview, Cava reflects on his scientific contributions, and he emphasizes the value in science of being a good listener.

Interview with Charles Kane, Christopher H. Browne distinguished professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. Kane surveys the interplay of theory and experiment in condensed matter over the course of his career, and he recounts his childhood in Iowa City, where his father was a professor of civil engineering. He discusses his undergraduate work at the University of Chicago, and the formative influence of Tom Rosenbaum on his interest in theory. Kane describes his graduate research at MIT under the direction of Patrick Lee to focus on mesoscopic physics, and he conveys the excitement surrounding High Tc. He discusses his postdoctoral work at IBM to focus on free-floating theory and he explains the exciting prospect of joining Penn which had a strong condensed matter group. Kane describes Steve Girvin’s role in introducing him to the quantum Hall effect and his key collaboration with Matthew Fischer on calculating electrical conduction when a one-dimensional conductor has a weak link in it. He discusses his subsequent interest in carbon nanotubes and graphene and his realization that graphene should have an energy gap. Kane describes the feeling in winning both the Dirac and Buckley prizes and he discusses advances in the phenomenology of topological insulators. He explains the controversy surrounding Majorana modes and he discusses the recognition by the Breakthrough Prize for his work in topology and symmetry. At the end of the interview, Kane reflects on the growth of his department at Penn and he explains why improved applications of quantum mechanics and improved understanding of quantum mechanics must progress in tandem.

Interview with Alice White, Professor and Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Boston University. She recounts her childhood as the daughter of a Bell Labs physicist and her early interests in learning how things work, and she explains her decision to attend Middlebury College. White describes her formative fellowship at Bell Labs and her graduate research in physics at Harvard, where Mike Tinkham supervised her research. She describes being hired by Bob Dynes at MTS in Bell Labs for her postdoctoral research in low temperature physics and she discusses her subsequent work with John Poate on ion implantation. White explains her increasing involvement in optics and the significance of this work during the "dot com" boom and she narrates the reorganization and breakup of Bell. She describes the opportunities that led to her faculty appointment at BU, and she describes working at the interface between mechanical engineering and physics. White describes creating the Multiscale Laser Lithography Lab and her overlapping research interests with biologists, and she reflects on some of the advantages at BU of operating in the shadows of MIT and Harvard. She discusses her tenure as department chair and her research on 3D printing for cardiac repairs. At the end of the interview, White reflects on working at Bell Labs at the height of American power and ingenuity, she emphasizes the importance of encouraging her students to take scientific risks, and she indicates that her future research will be devoted to climate change.

Interview with Frances Hellman, professor of physics and of Materials Science and Engineering, Dean of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at UC Berkeley, as well as senior faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab.  Hellman is also president-elect of the APS. Hellman explains why she considers physics her “home” department and why her research agenda spans so many disciplines. She describes the major issues in her incoming leadership of APS and how Berkeley has coped during the pandemic. Hellman recounts her childhood in Manhattan and then Brooklyn and she describes her Quaker education and her early interests in science. She describes her focus on ski racing and her undergraduate experience at Dartmouth, and the formative influence that Bruce Pipes had on her development as a physicist. Hellman discusses her motivations to pursue thesis research at Stanford, where Mac Beasley and Ted Geballe were her co-advisors and where A15 superconductor research was in full gear. She describes her postdoctoral appointment at Bell Labs to work on magnetic thin film materials and magnetic superconductors. Hellman conveys her interest in entrepreneurship and the opportunities that allowed her to join the faculty at UC San Diego, and she describes building up her lab and her interests in thermal links. She reflects broadly on the basic and applied aspects of her research, and she explains her reasons for transferring to Berkeley and her affiliation with the Exploratorium. Hellman describes her administrative responsibilities as department chair in physics and she conveys her recent interests in amorphous materials and specifically ideal glass. At the end of the interview, Hellman discusses her involvement in both the APS and Berkeley’s efforts to make STEM more inclusive and diverse, and she describes her optimism that her work on amorphous materials will lead to key discovery in the field.

Interview with Bertram Batlogg, Professor Emeritus at ETH Zurich. Batlogg surveys his current interests in topological superconductivity and superconductivity in twisted layer graphene, and he connects this current research with his own work at Bell Labs earlier in his career. He considers the current state of play in high-Tc research and he recounts his family's Austrian heritage and his upbringing early interests in physics. Batlogg describes his undergraduate experience at ETH Zurich and his reasons for remaining to complete his PhD thesis work. He describes Bell Labs as the Mecca for his research as a postdoctoral fellow and then as a staff scientist. Batlogg discusses his work on Hall effect measurements, superconductivity, and heavy Fermions, and he describes his tenure as head of the solid state physics and materials research division.  He describes the culture of basic science and how it changed from the 1980s to the 1990s, and he discusses his formative collaborations with Bob Cava and 1-2-3 YBCO. He narrates the story of meeting Jan Hendrik Schön and the issues that would lead to the investigation led by Mac Beasley. Batlogg conveys the scientific and emotional turmoil of this episode and the impact this episode had on his sense of trust in people. He describes participating in the investigation after he had already left Bell Labs to return to ETH Zurich to build up a research group with a focus that included topics such as charge dynamics and heavy Fermions in very high magnetic fields. At the end of the interview, Batlogg emphasizes advances in data acquisition and spectroscopy that propelled the field forward over his career, and he considers how some his research can contribute in the future to discoveries in both the applied and basic realms of science.

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Robert C. Dynes, Research Professor, Emeritus President of the University of California, and Emeritus Chancellor of UC San Diego. Dynes recounts his childhood in Ontario, his early interests in science, and his decision to attend the University of Western Ontario for college. He explains his decision to pursue a PhD at McMaster University, and he describes some of the advances in superconductivity that were exciting at that time. Dynes discusses his postdoctoral research at Bell Labs and he emphasizes that the research culture was geared exclusively to basic science and had nothing to do with financial considerations toward Bell’s business. He describes his political engagement during the Vietnam Era and he describes the changing culture at Bell during the breakup in the 1980s when he was Director of Chemical Physics. Dynes discusses his research on thin films of metals at the atomic level, and he explains the circumstances leading to his tenure at UC San Diego. He explains how the university was building up across the sciences, and he conveys how important teaching was to him. Dynes describes the process leading to being named Chancellor, and he reviews his challenges and accomplishments in this role. He compares the Chancellor’s responsibilities to those of the UC President, to which he was named in 2003, and he describes his efforts to remain active in research even as he was running the entire UC system. Dynes describes the existential challenge of being president at a time that the state was defunding public education, and he describes some of his key successes in faculty recruitment. He conveys his delight when his term as president ended and he was able to return to the physics department in San Diego. At the end of the interview Dynes cites integrity and creativity as the characteristics that he sees as most fundamental to success in science.

In this interview Richard Garwin discusses topics such as: low-temperature physics, cryogenics, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, hydrogen bomb, International Business Machines (IBM), superconductivity, nuclear magnetic resonance, John Tukey, fast Fourier transforms, computers, Erwin Hahn, patents and licenses, lasers.This interview is part of a collection of interviews on the life and work of Richard Garwin. To see all associated interviews, click here.

Professor Kitazawa recalls his earlier experience of studying and working both in United States and in Japan.  He gives a detailed description about the research work of high Tc superconductivity in Japan from 1970 -1987, especially about some important events in the researcher of high Tc superconductivity that happened after the Bednorz and Muller discovery, which involved American, Japanese and Chinese scientists.  He also gives some comments on the science policy and R&D of superconductivity in Japan, United States and China.

Topics discussed include: Harvard education, war work at Woods Hole, research with Edward Purcell, University of Illinois, Albert Overhauser, superconductivity, Kondo effect, President's Science Advisory Committee, teaching, consulting, computing, John Bardeen, Wheeler Loomis, David Pines, Fred Seitz and Edward van Vleck.

Topics discussed include: family background; Slichter's time as a student at Harvard University; John Van Vleck; his time at the University of Illinois; solid state physics; Fred Seitz; discovery of superconductivity; Albert Overhauser; John Bardeen; Ginsberg-Landau theory; Bardeen-Cooper-Schreiffer (BCS) theory.