Andrey A. Varlamov

Prediction of thermomagnetic and thermoelectric properties for novel materials and systems

We express the link between conductivity and coefficients of Seebeck, Nernst-Ettingshausen, Peltier, and Thompson and Reghi-Leduc via the temperature derivative of the chemical potential of a system. These general expressions are applied to three-, two- and one-dimensional systems of charge carriers having a parabolic or Dirac spectrum. The method allows for predicting thermoelectric and thermomagnetic properties of novel materials and systems.

Nernst-Ettingshausen effect in two-component electronic liquids

A simple model describing the Nernst-Ettingshausen effect (NEE) in two-component electronic liquids is formulated. The examples considered include graphite, where the normal and Dirac fermions coexist, superconductor in fluctuating regime, with coexisting Cooper pairs and normal electrons, and the inter-stellar plasma of electrons and protons. We give a general expression for the Nernst constant and show that the origin of a giant NEE is in the strong dependence of the chemical potential on temperature in all cases.

Enhanced thermoelectric coupling near electronic phase transition: The role of fluctuation Cooper pairs

Thermoelectric energy conversion is a direct but low-efficiency process, which precludes the development of long-awaited wide-scale applications. As a breakthrough permitting a drastic performance increase is seemingly out of reach, we fully reconsider the problem of thermoelectric coupling enhancement. The corner stone of our approach is the observation that heat engines are particularly efficient when their operation involves a phase transition of their working fluid. We derive and compute the thermoelastic coefficients of various systems, including Bose and Fermi gases, and fluctuation Cooper pairs. Combination of these coefficients yields the definition of the thermodynamic figure of merit, the divergence of which at

Quantization of entropy in a quasi-two-dimensional electron gas

finite

Magnetization currents of fluctuating Cooper pairs

temperature indicates that conditions are fulfilled for the best possible use of the thermoelectric working fluid. Here, this situation occurs in the fluctuation regime only, as a consequence of the increased compressibility of the working fluid near its phase transition. Our results and analysis clearly show that efforts in the field of thermoelectricity can now be productively directed towards systems where electronic phase transitions are possible.

Effect of fluctuations on the NMR relaxation beyond the Abrikosov vortex state

We demonstrate that the partial entropy of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) exhibits quantized peaks at resonances between the chemical potential and electron levels of size quantization. In the limit of no scattering, the peaks depend only on the subband quantization number and are independent on material parameters, shape of the confining potential, electron effective mass and temperature. The quantization of partial entropy is a signature of a topological phase transition in a 2DEG. In the presence of stationary disorder, the magnitude of peaks decreases. Its deviation from the quantized values is a direct measure of the disorder induced smearing of the electronic density of states.

Effective mass of a charged carrier in a nonpolar liquid : Snowball effect in superfluid helium

Recent experiments show that the Nernst-Ettingshausen effect is orders of magnitude stronger than the thermoelectric Seebeck effect in superconductors above the critical temperature. We explain different magnitudes of the two effects accounting for the magnetization current of virtual Cooper pairs. The method allows for detailed understanding of the surprising non-monotonic dependence of the Nernst-Ettingshausen coefficient on the magnetic field.

The physics of baking good pizza

Here, the effect of fluctuations on the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxation rate W = T–11 is studied in a complete phase diagram of a two-dimensional superconductor above the upper critical field line Hc2(T). In the region of relatively high temperatures and low magnetic fields, the relaxation rate W is determined by two competing effects. The first one is its decrease in the result of suppression of the quasiparticle density of states (DOS) due to formation of fluctuation Cooper pairs (FCPs). The second one is a specific, purely quantum relaxation process of the Maki-Thompson (MT) type, which for low field leads to an increase of the relaxation rate. The latter describes particular fluctuation processes involving self-pairing of a single electron on self-intersecting trajectories of a size up to phase-breaking length lΦ which becomes possible due to an electron spin-flip scattering event at a nucleus. As a result, different scenarios with either growth or decrease of the NMR relaxation rate are possible upon approaching the normal-metal–type-II superconductor transition. The character of fluctuations changes along the line Hc2(T) from the thermal long-wavelength type in weak magnetic fields to the clusters of rotating FCPs in fields comparable to Hc2(0). We find that belowmorexa0» the well-defined temperature T*0 ≈ 0.6Tc0, the MT process becomes ineffective even in the absence of intrinsic pair breaking. The small scale of the FCP rotations ξxy in such high fields impedes formation of long (≲lΦ) self-intersecting trajectories, causing the corresponding relaxation mechanism to lose its efficiency. This reduces the effect of superconducting fluctuations in the domain of high fields and low temperatures to just the suppression of quasiparticle DOS, analogous to the Abrikosov vortex phase below the Hc2(T) line.«xa0less

In memory of Aleksei Alekseevich Abrikosov

The problem of a correct definition of the charged carrier effective mass in superfluid helium is revised. It is shown that the effective mass of such a quasiparticle can be introduced without Atkinss idea about the solidification of liquid He{sup 4} in the close vicinity of an ion (the so-called snowball model). Moreover, in addition to the generalization of Atkinss model, the charged carrier effective mass formation is considered within the framework of the two-fluid scenario. The physical reasons of the normal-fluid contribution divergency and the way of the corresponding regularization procedure are discussed. Agreement between the theory and the available experimental data is found in a wide range of temperatures.

MAGNETIC-FIELD ENHANCEMENT OF THE C-AXIS RESISTIVITY PEAK NEAR T(C) IN LAYERED SUPERCONDUCTORS

Physical principles are involved in almost any aspect of cooking. Here we analyze the specific process of baking pizzas, deriving in simple terms the baking times for two different situations: For a brick oven in a pizzeria and a modern metallic oven at home. Our study is based on basic thermodynamic principles relevant to the cooking process and is accessible to undergraduate students. We start with a historical overview of the development and art of pizza baking, illustrate the underlying physics by some simple common examples, and then apply them in detail to the example of baking pizza.