William Zimmerman

Enhanced superconductivity in aluminum-based hyperbolic metamaterials

One of the most important goals of condensed matter physics is materials by design, i.e. the ability to reliably predict and design materials with a set of desired properties. A striking example is the deterministic enhancement of the superconducting properties of materials. Recent experiments have demonstrated that the metamaterial approach is capable of achieving this goal, such as tripling the critical temperature TC in Al-Al2O3 epsilon near zero (ENZ) core-shell metamaterial superconductors. Here, we demonstrate that an Al/Al2O3 hyperbolic metamaterial geometry is capable of a similar TC enhancement, while having superior transport and magnetic properties compared to the core-shell metamaterial superconductors.

Locally conformal finite-difference time-domain techniques for particle-in-cell plasma simulation

The Dey-Mittra [S. Dey, R. Mitra, A locally conformal finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) algorithm for modeling three-dimensional perfectly conducting objects, IEEE Microwave Guided Wave Lett. 7 (273) 1997] finite-difference time-domain partial cell method enables the modeling of irregularly shaped conducting surfaces while retaining second-order accuracy. We present an algorithm to extend this method to include charged particle emission and absorption in particle-in-cell codes. Several examples are presented that illustrate the possible improvements that can be realized using the new algorithm for problems relevant to plasma simulation.