[LA-SiGMA] Dr. Paul C. Canfield's Seminar, Wednesday February 6, 3:30 p.m.

[Bety Rodriguez-Milla]

Dear All,

Dr. Paul C. Canfield of Iowa State University and Ames Laboratory will be giving a seminar this Wednesday February 6, 2013 at 3:30 p.m. at Tilton Hall 305, Tulane University. The title of his talk is "Cooking, Fishing and Jogging through Phase Space:  A Practical Guide to Discovering (and Understanding) New Materials".

Abstract:
The design, discovery, characterization and control of novel materials is perhaps the most important research area for humanity as it moves into the 21rst century.  A myriad of societal problems concerning energy, clear water and air, and medicine all need to be solved by the discovery of new compounds with dramatically improved, or even new, properties.  The search for such materials requires a blending of skills and mind sets that, traditionally, have been segregated into different academic disciplines:  physics, chemistry, metallurgy, materials science.  In this lecture I will outline the basic philosophy and techniques that we use to search for novel materials. These include a combination of intuition, experience, compulsive optimism and a desire to share discovery.  (To some extent the driving force can be considered similar to that which drives the host of a fine dinner party.)  In the second half of the lecture, the specific case of superconductivity will be used as an example of one specific such search.  Over the past couple of decades a growing sense of where, and even how to search for new superconductors has been developing, with the recent discovery of the FeAs based materials providing, at least for me, clear guidance. The lecture will be general and include side comments, mildly slanderous asides and may even have references to philosophers living and dead.

About the speaker. 
Dr. Paul C. Canfield received his PhD from the University of California - Los Angeles, and then held a postdoctoral position at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has been at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa State University and Ames Laboratory since 1993. Dr. Canfield’s group has broad interests in the design, discovery, growth and characterization of novel materials, primarily in single crystal form.  The low temperature electronic, magnetic and thermal properties of intermetallic compounds are of specific interest.  Behaviors such as superconductivity, heavy Fermion, quantum critical, ferro- and antiferromagnetic, and spinglass are studied in crystalline and quasicrystalline materials so as to gain better understanding and control of these complex, and many times useful, states.

The seminar will be a live broadcast from Tulane University, and can be viewed live at the sites listed below:

LSU - Johnston Hall Room 338
UNO - Liberal Arts Building 234
Xavier - Qatar Pavilion Conference Room 226
Southern University - JB Moore Hall, Room 211
LATech -  PML 1015, Center for Instructional Technology, at the Wyly Tower.

The seminar will also be accessible via adobe connect by clicking on following link:  https://connect.lsu.edu/la-sigma/

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Regards,

-Bety

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PaulCanfield_lasigma020613.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 210454 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : https://mail.loni.org/mailman/private/lasigma/attachments/20130131/30e86407/attachment-0001.pdf