Add to Calendar 2026-01-08T10:00:00 2026-01-08T11:00:00 Materials Engineering of Superconductors: Challenges and transformative opportunities in superconductor vortex physics Event Information: Abstract: In superconductors, the motion of vortices introduces unwanted dissipation that is disruptive to applications, for example, limiting the current-carrying capacity in wires and causing energy losses in microwave circuits.  Fortunately, material defects can immobilize vortices, acting as vortex pinning centers, which engenders dramatic improvements in superconductor material properties and device operation. This has motivated decades of research into developing methods of tailoring the disorder landscape in superconductors to increase the strength of vortex pinning. Yet efficacious materials engineering still eludes us. The electromagnetic properties of real (disordered) superconducting materials cannot yet be reliably predicted, such that designing superconductors for applications remains a largely inefficient process of trial and error.   In this talk, I will discuss major open questions in vortex physics and our efforts to understand the complex interplay between vortex elasticity, vortex-vortex interactions, and material disorder.  I will cover results from studies of a wide variety of materials, specifically discussing the effects of incorporating artificial pinning centers and anisotropy on the critical current, thermally-activated vortex motion (creep), and vortex phases. Lastly, I will present our work towards answering two of the major open questions in vortex physics — determining the ceiling for the critical current density and the minimum achievable rate of thermally activated vortex motion. Understanding these limitations provides new clues about the interplay between material parameters and vortex dynamics as well as how to engineer materials with slow creep. Bio: Dr. Serena Eley is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. She has received numerous honors, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a Cottrell Scholars Award, the American Institute of Physics Joseph A. Johnson Award, and recognition as an RCSA Scialog Quantum Matter and Information Fellow. She earned her B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology and then conducted research at the International Superconductivity Technology Center in Tokyo as a Henry Luce Scholar before completing her Ph.D. in physics at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. Her dissertation, which earned the John Bardeen Award, investigated proximity effects and vortex dynamics in nanostructured superconductor–normal‑metal arrays, revealing behavior that deviates from conventional proximity effect theories. Following her doctoral work, Dr. Eley conducted research at Sandia National Laboratories on silicon-based spin‑qubit devices, at Los Alamos National Laboratory on vortex dynamics in superconductors, and later served as an Assistant Professor of Physics at the Colorado School of Mines. Today, her research group explores the complex interactions among disorder, thermal energy, spin, and charge in quantum materials and devices, with a focus on superconductivity, magnetism, vortex and skyrmion dynamics, energy‑loss mechanisms in superconducting circuits, and spintronics. Event Location: BRIM 311