Description:

Abstract: Topological superfluid3He, with its unconventional spin-triplet p-wave pairing, provides a model system for topological superconductors, which have attracted significant interest for their possible applications in topologically protected quantum computing. Properties of superfluid 3He are greatly affected by proximity of surfaces and disorder. In this talk, I will describe a series of experiments in which we study these effects. Evidence for new superfluid phases, in addition to the superfluid A and B phases realized in bulk, was observed when 3He was confined within highly oriented aerogel. Superfluid phase diagram is also greatly modified when superfluid3He is confined within nanofabricated slabs of height commensurate to the superfluid coherence length. Such nanoscale confinement allows us to study the nature of nucleation of the A-B first order phase transition and reveals evidence for the existence for a spatially modulated superfluid phase near the A-B transition.

Speaker: Nikolay Zhelev, Northwestern University

Host: Mehdi Zarea