M2 ICFP – Superconductivity

  • Educators and schedule: Tuesday afternoon, Sorbonne University, Room 23 24 205 (7/09 to 23/10) and then 56 66 111 (9/11 to 11/12)
  • Program
    • Discovery of superconductivity, main superconducting phenomena;
    • First phenomenological descriptions: magnetic field, temperature, energy;
    • London theory: Meissner effect, idea of macroscopic quantum state;
    • Ginzburg-Landau theory I: order parameter, energy, coherence length;
    • Ginzburg-Landau theory II: magnetic field, vortex, type I vs type II materials;
    • Weak superconductivity: Josephson phenomena;
    • BCS theory I: phonon-mediates electron attraction, Cooper pairs;
    • BCS theory II: Schrieffer’s trial wavefunction; gap, excitations, critical current;
    • Unconventional and low-dimensional superconductivity;
    • Labwork
  • Lecture notes and exercise sheets
    • 08/09 – Lecture 1 – notes by Dimitri Roditchev
    • 15 and 22/09 – Lecture 2 – notes by Dimitri Roditchev
    • Article on the energy density in quantum mechanics – pdf.
    • Exercise session 1 (15/9) – pdf. Notes on the tutorial – pdf.
    • Exercise session 2 (22/9) – pdf. Notes on the tutorial – pdf.
    • 29/9 – Lecture 3 – notes by Dimitri Roditchev
    • Exercise session 3 (29/9) – pdf. Notes on Ex 2 and Ex 3.
    • Josephson physics (19/10)
      • Lecture notes : pdf.
      • Lecture slides : pdf.
      • Recorded lecture : link to 6 videos. This link is valid until Nov 6th, 2026. If you need it after that, send me an email.
      • Exercise session 4 (19/10) – pdf. Notes on the tutorial – pdf.
  • Assignment
  • Bibliography
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  • Evaluation
    • final exam : 3 heures, écrit (70%)
    • labwork: oral presentation (20%)
    • 2 homeworks (10%)
  • Past exams: