Emerging layered superconductors and related materials

Layered metal oxides/chalcogenides/pnictides exhibit interesting and useful functional properties including high temperature superconductivity and giant thermoelectric performance. In these cases, the structural topology is deeply related to strong fluctuations of valence state and local bond. The layered structure topology of the functional materials is important also due to the fact that electronic degrees of freedom in the layered structures have strongly fluctuating character and the phases with charge (or magnetic order), coexisting with metallic (or superconducting) states can provide an effective mechanism for non-conventional phenomena. On the applied side, layered structures permit to have tuning of properties through external parameters as doping/intercalation, pressure, strain, electric and magnetic fields. This is of key interest for developing new materials through ‘control and manipulation’ for desired properties. Here, the focus is to discuss recent advances in the layered functional materials including emerging superconductors in which inhomogeneous ground state playing important role. In particular quantitative characterization of these materials is a challenging task requiring space and time resolved experimental tools applied under extreme conditions (e.g. pressure, electric and magnetic fields). The symposium welcomes contributions based on theoretical, experimental and applied aspects of the physics, chemistry, materials science on the following topics:

 - Emerging layered functional materials
 - Physics and chemistry of layered thermoelectric materials
 - Defect chemistry of layered pnictides and chalcogenides.
 - Pressure induced phases in layered materials
 - Intrinsic structure of layered functional materials

Symposium organizers:

Naurang Saini
Sapienza University of Rome
E-mail: [email protected]

Takashi Mizokawa
Waseda University, Tokyo
E-mail: [email protected]