Mishra Selected for CMNS Board of Visitors Award

The CMNS Board of Visitors selected Rashmish Mishra, a graduate student in the Maryland Center for Theoretical Physics, to receive the 2013 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. The 2013 CMNS Board of Visitors Awards will be presented at this year's Academic Festival on May 10, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. in the G. Forrest Woods Atrium of the Chemistry Building.

Milchberg Selected as 2013 OSA Fellow

Professor Howard Milchberg was named a 2013 fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA). The number of OSA Members recommended for election to Fellow each year is limited to less than 0.5 percent of the total OSA Membership.  Fellows are selected based on their overall impact on optics, as gauged through factors such as specific scientific, engineering, and technological contributions, a record of significant publications or patents related to optics, technical leadership in the field, and service to OSA and the global optics community.

These distinguished Fellow Members will be recognized individually at meetings throughout 2013. Specific information on each new Fellow Member’s accomplishments are published in the February issue of Optics and Photonics News.

Finding Unconventional Superconductors by Visual Inspection

Researchers, including Steve Anlage, have discovered a new and simple experimental test to see if a superconductor is ‘unconventional’ and unusual. Many of the high temperature superconductors discovered over the past 30 years are thought to be unconventional in nature. One strategy for discovering new higher temperature superconductors is to create even more exotic unconventional superconductors. The experiment creates a clear graphical image of the properties of the superconductor in different directions, as shown below. An anisotropic image is a clear sign of the unconventional nature of the superconducting state. This image shows the four nodal directions of the d-wave superconductor YBa2Cu3O7- as enhanced response (tall, white areas). The technique can now be applied to newly discovered superconductors to test them for unconventional properties, and will help guide the search for even higher temperature superconductors.

The results appeared in a spring issue of Physical Review Letters.