Alexander V. Balatsky Explained

Alexander V. Balatsky
Birth Date:1961
Birth Place:Pushkin, USSR
Field:Physics, Condensed Matter Theory
Work Institutions:Los Alamos National Laboratory, NORDITA, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Alma Mater:Landau Institute
Doctoral Advisor:M. Feigelman, V.P. Mineev and G.E. Volovik at Landau Institute, David Pines at UIUC
Prizes: AAAS Fellow, APS Fellow, Los Alamos Fellow

Alexander V. Balatsky (born 19 October 1961) is a USSR-born American physicist. He is the professor of theoretical physics at NORDITA and University of Connecticut. He served as the founding director of the Institute for Materials Science (IMS) at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2014–2017.

Biography

Born in Pushkin, USSR he was educated in Russia, being made Master of Science at Moscow Physical-Technology Institute in 1984 and Doctor of Philosophy at the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics in 1987. He moved to the United States in 1989 as apostdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois in 1989–1990 after which he was appointed a research assistant professor position at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He then moved to Los Alamos National Laboratory as an Oppenheimer Fellow. As an acting chief scientist and as a theory thrust leader he was actively involved in bringing up the Center of Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT)[1] and building an active theory program at CINT.

In 2011 Balatsky was appointed as a professor of theoretical condensed matter physics at Nordita in Stockholm.[2] In 2014 he returned to the US to become Director of the new Institute for Functional Materials at Los Alamos.

Work

Balatsky is known for his contributions to the theory of High-temperature superconductivity,[3] and mechanism of superconducting pairing known as Spin Fluctuation Theory.[4] [5]

According to this theory, the pairing wave function of the cuprate HTS should have a dx2-y2 symmetry. The same spin fluctuation mechanism is likely responsible for the superconducting pairing in Heavy fermion superconductors and in Fe based superconductors.Balatsky recently worked on anomalous mechanical properties of solid He4[6] [7] as an alternative explanation of supersolidity seen in torsional oscillator experiments,[8] [9] on theory of Heavy Fermions,[10] and on electronic and structural properties of DNA and Graphene hybrid structures[11] [12]

Balatsky and collaborators predicted the existence of the impurity induced resonances in d-wave superconductors that can serve as markers of unconventional superconductivity,[13] and Impurity-induced states in conventional and unconventional superconductors.[14]

He also proposed the notion of Dirac Materials[15] as a unifying class of materials that exhibit Dirac like excitations.

Honors and awards

He was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2003,[16] and Los Alamos Fellow[17] in 2005. In Nov 2011, he was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow[18]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: CINT – Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies . cint.lanl.gov.
  2. Web site: Alexander Balatsky – NORDITA. Mühlen. Hans. www.nordita.org. en. 2018-01-03.
  3. Web site: Physics Today: Vol 53, No 3 .
  4. P. Monthoux . A. V. Balatsky . D. Pines . 1992 . Weak-coupling theory of high-temperature superconductivity in the antiferromagnetically correlated copper oxides . . 46 . 22 . 14803–14817 . 10.1103/PhysRevB.46.14803 . 10003579 . 1992PhRvB..4614803M .
  5. 10.1038/475280a. 21776057. High-temperature superconductivity at 25: Still in suspense. Nature. 475. 7356. 280–282. 2011. Mann. Adam. 2011Natur.475..280M.
  6. A. V. Balatsky . M. J. Graf . Z. Nussinov . J.-J. Su . 2013. Defects and glassy dynamics in solid He-4: Perspectives and current status. J Low Temp Phys. 172 . 5–6 . 388–421. 10.1007/s10909-012-0766-5. 1209.0803 . 2013JLTP..172..388B . 118569677 .
  7. C Zhou . J Su . MJ Graf . C Reichhardt . AV Balatsky . IJ Beyerlein . 2012. Dislocation-induced anomalous softening of solid helium. Philosophical Magazine Letters. 92 . 608–616 . 11. 10.1080/09500839.2012.704415. 1110.0841 . 2012PMagL..92..608Z . 119193326 .
  8. Web site: Study Casts New Light on 'Supersolid' Effects in Helium-4 | the Kavli Foundation.
  9. Web site: Supersolid helium unlikely.
  10. Web site: First images of heavy electrons in action: Characteristics of 'hidden order' in unusual uranium compound.
  11. Web site: Alexander Balatsky: DNA Electronic Fingerprints by Local Spectroscopy on Graphene – Carbonhagen2013.
  12. Web site: APS -APS March Meeting 2013 – Session Index MAR13. 58. 1.
  13. cond-mat/0411318. Balatsky. A. V.. Impurity-induced states in conventional and unconventional superconductors. Graf. M. J.. Nussinov. Z.. Su. J. -J.. 2004.
  14. Impurity-induced states in conventional and unconventional superconductors. A. V. Balatsky . I. Vekhter . Jian-Xin Zhu . Rev. Mod. Phys.. 78 . 2 . 373–433. 2006. 2006RvMP...78..373B . 10.1103/RevModPhys.78.373 . cond-mat/0411318. 119523494 .
  15. 10.1080/00018732.2014.927109. Dirac materials. Advances in Physics. 63. 1. 2014. Wehling. T.O. Black-Schaffer. A.M. Balatsky. A.V. 1. 1405.5774. 2014AdPhy..63....1W. 118557449.
  16. Web site: APS Fellow Archive.
  17. Web site: Fellows Biographies.
  18. Web site: "AAAS Fellows". 2014-06-27 . https://archive.today/20140627163032/http://membercentral.aaas.org/fellows?page=7 . 2014-06-27 . dead .