QDev Seminar: Aharon Kapitulnik

Time Reversal Symmetry Breaking in Unconventional Superconductors

In this talk we will survey current searches for time reversal symmetry breaking (TRSB) in unconventional superconductors, concentrating on several classes of systems. After a brief discussion on the origin of TRSB in condensed matter systems I will introduce various ways to detect such effects, and in particular the use of optical effects. The invention of the Sagnac interferometer in our group allows for detection of antisymmetric contributions to the real and imaginary parts of the frequency-dependent conductivity tensor, with resolution exceeding 10-8 rad. Utilizing the Sagnac instrument I will show results on a variety of unconventional superconductors and discuss their implications to the determination of the possible pairing symmetry in each system.