Exploring High-Temperature Superconductors with Zn-Doped YBCO

by Luis Enrique Cueva Guzman

Thursday 7 May 2026, 14:30 → 15:30 Europe/Berlin

E18/ENE Seminar Room 3268 (TUM PH)

The microscopic description of high-temperature superconductors remains a major mystery, as they exhibit other quantum phase states that give rise to the mechanisms triggering superconductivity, though exactly how they do so is not yet fully understood. Consequently, to understand high-temperature superconductivity, we must first understand these new phases and how they interact with one another. For this reason, during my thesis work, I produced and characterized thin films of the zinc-doped YBCO superconductor. Since zinc is capable of suppressing superconductivity, future studies on these materials could help us understand the properties of the other quantum phases at temperatures where superconductivity is normally predominant. The main goal of my research was to determine whether future studies on Zn-doped YBCO are valid and equivalent to those on pristine YBCO. To achieve this, we investigated the influence of zinc on the production of the thin films, the crystal lattice structure, the transport measurements, and the resulting phase diagram.