GHN colloquium with Prof. Elena Hassinger (TUM)

Summary

The GHN Colloquium talk series features the female scientists of the Grete Hermann Network (GHN) - a newly founded international network of female researchers in condensed matter physics and neighboring research areas. Distinguished female researchers are invited to give a lecture on their research and current projects, as well as about their career paths, to inspire young female scientists in particular, and to exchange ideas. After the official talk there will be an internal GHN networking event.

 

On May 10, 2022, we are happy to welcome Prof. Elena Hassinger from TU Munich who will give an online scientific talk on Field-induced transition from even to odd parity superconductivity in CeRh₂As₂.

 

 

 

 

Talk abstract

 

 

Elena will report on the discovery of unconventional superconductivity in CeRh₂As₂. Although it appears at temperatures below 1 K, the superconducting state is extremely robust under the application of magnetic fields and presents a unique phase diagram. Most interestingly, a field-induced phase transition within the superconducting state appears for c-axis fields in magnetisation, susceptibility and magnetostriction indicating two separate superconducting states. The phase diagram can be understood by taking into account the staggered spin-orbit coupling at the Ce position. In that picture, the magnetic field drives a transition from even to odd parity superconductivity. The angle dependence of the critical fields strongly reinforces this interpretation.

 

 

About Elena Hassinger

 

 

Elena received her physics diploma at the university of Heidelberg in 2007. She then did her PhD between 2007 and 2010 in the group by Jacques Flouquet in CEA Grenoble, France, on high pressure studies of competing phases in uranium heavy fermion systems. Afterwards she moved to Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada, for a postdoc in Louis Taillefer’s group. As a Cifar Global Scholar and FQRNT postdoc fellow she worked on superconductivity in iron pnictides and Sr2RuO4.

 

In 2014 she was awarded an independent Max-Planck research group leader position by the Max Planck Society. She leads the group “Physics of Unconventional Metals and Superconductors” at the MPI for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, Germany. Her research interest lies in quantum materials and there namely unconventional superconductors and unconventional metals, including topological semimetals. Her group focuses on experiments in extreme conditions, that is very low temperature, very high magnetic fields and high pressure, in which she studies thermal and electric transport and magnetic susceptibility. She is also specialised in quantum oscillations, a fingerprint of clean metals giving microscopic information on the electronic states.

 

Since 2016 Elena Hassinger additionally holds an assistant professorship at the TU Munich.

 

Image: Archive Hassinger