The Bethe Lecture Series - Spring 2009

March 23–25, 2009

Dr. Paul C. W. Chu

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

University of Houston

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Professor Paul C. W. Chu is the President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).  He is also the Executive Director of Texas Center for Superconductivity and the T. L. L. Temple Chair of Science at the University of Houston.  He was born in Hunan, China, and received his B.S. degree from Cheng-Kung University in Taiwan, an M.S. degree from Fordham University NY, and a Ph.D. degree from the University of California at San Diego.
Professor Chu had conducted industrial research at Bell Laboratories at Murray Hill, New Jersey before he held academic appointments at Cleveland State University and the University of Houston.  He also served as consultant and visiting staff member at various national and industrial laboratories.
After assuming the presidency of HKUST in 2001, Professor Chu has set out to further raise the profile of the University internationally.  In June 2005, Prof Chu launched the HKUST Strategic Plan 2005-2020 which envisions the development of HKUST into one of the world’s academic leaders in five academic fields, namely nano-science and nano-technology, biological sciences and biotechnology, electronics, wireless and information technology, sustainable development and energy, as well as management education and research.   He has also initiated the establishment of an Institute for Advanced Study at HKUST which is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge to meet the great challenges of the 21st century.
Professor Chu has been instrumental in expanding HKUST’s partnership with the Government and the region’s industries. Several major institutes have been established under the sponsorship of the Government and the private sector, with the R&D Center for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, a $400 million initiative, being the latest example of the successful partnership.
Professor Chu remains actively engaged in the basic and applied research of high temperature superconductivity.  In January 1987, he and his colleagues achieved stable superconductivity at 93 K (-180ºC) above the critical temperature of liquid nitrogen (-196ºC), a major advancement in modern science.  Later, they again obtained stable superconductivity at a new record high temperature of 164 K (-109ºC) in another compound when it was compressed. 
He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing), the Academia Sinica (Taipei), the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, and a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Engineering, and he was awarded honorary degrees from several universities worldwide.  In 1990, he was selected as the Best Researcher in the US by the US News and World Report.  In 2007, he was appointed as a Member of the US President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science, responsible for the selection of recipients for this top scientific honor in the US.
Professor Chu has received numerous awards, including the National Medal of Science, the International Prize for New Materials, the Comstock Award, the Texas Instruments’ Founders’ Prize, the John Fritz Medal, the Freedoms Foundation National Award and the Ettore Majorana—Erice—Science for Peace Prize.  He also serves on the editorial boards of various professional journals.  He is a member of the board of directors of the Council on Superconductivity for American Competitiveness and a member of the Steering Committee on Innovation and Technology of Hong Kong.

Physics Colloquium, Monday, March 23
Schwartz Auditorium, Rockefeller Hall
From BCS through HTS to RTS?
Two years after celebrating the 50th anniversary of the BCS theory and the 20th anniversary of the discovery of high temperature superconductivity (HTS), it appears to be most fitting for some of us to contemplate the possibility of room temperature superconductivity (RTS). Room temperature superconductivity, if achieved, can change the world both scientifically and technologically. Unfortunately, it has long been considered by some to belong to the domain of science fiction and to occur only “at an astronomical distance and under an astronomical pressure.” With the advent of liquid nitrogen superconductivity in 1987, the outlook has become much brighter. Currently, there appears to be no reason, either theoretical or experimental, why RTS would be impossible. In this talk, I shall present several possible approaches toward RTS that we are currently pursuing, after briefly summarizing what has happened in the long search for HTS and RTS.

LASSP Seminar, Tuesday, March 24, 4:30pm

700 Clark Hall
High Pressure Studies on Fe-Pnictide Superconductors

The majority of interactions in solids (and other states of matter) depend critically on the interatomic distance. The application of pressure changes the interatomic distance and modifies the electronic, phononic and magnetic energy spectra of a solid without introducing any chemical complications while at the same time keeping the physical complexity to a minimum. Therefore, high pressure techniques have been used in the study of high temperature superconductivity to provide important information about the occurrence of superconductivity in compounds, as well as to induce superconductivity in others, giving guidance to the search for superconductivity with higher transition temperatures (Tcs). I will describe high pressure studies on the magnetic and superconducting properties of four newly discovered phases of the doped and undoped Fe-pnictides. Recently, a question about the pressure-induced superconductivity in CaFe2As2 has been raised and a possible intriguing role of pressure-hydrostaticity in pressure-induced superconductivity in Fe-pnictides has been proposed. The results will be presented and discussed in light of future opportunities and challenges in achieving higher Tc in Fe-pnictides.

Public Lecture, Wednesday, March 25, 7:30 PM

Schwartz Auditorium, Rockefeller Hall
An Exciting Odyssey of Discovery: From High-Temperature Superconductors in Houston to Developing an Intellectual Powerhouse in Hong Kong
According to Mark Twain, the famed American author and humorist, man’s noblest delight in life is DISCOVERY – to know that you are walking where no others have walked; that you are beholding what no human eye has seen; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. Indeed, what better joy can there be for a scientist than to discover a new material, phenomenon or theory; for a philosopher than to give birth to a new thought or paradigm; for an entrepreneur than to create new wealth; for a university president than to develop a haven for innovation and creativity; or for an explorer to find a new world? Discovery goes beyond science and has the potential to improve our world. The year of 2009 holds special meaning and poses great challenges for us all as the U.S. inaugurates its first black president, faces the onslaught of the economic tsunami, and, in a small way, witnesses the discovery of a new class of high temperature superconductors. In this lecture, I would like to share with the audience some of the exciting moments of a scientist oscillating between discovery in his lab in Houston and development of an intellectual powerhouse at his institute in Hong Kong.
 
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The Bethe Lecture Series, established in 1977 by the Cornell Department of Physics and the College of Arts and Sciences, honors Hans A. Bethe who joined Cornell’s faculty in 1936, and whose research extended across fields as diverse as the quantum theory of solids and the nuclear processes that power the sun, receiving the Nobel Prize for the later work in 1967. Bethe continued to make significant scientific contributions until his death in 2005.
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“…the spirit of physics, the idea of discovery … the beauty of how it fits together, and the beauty that the laws of physics are immutable.”
-Hans A. Bethe