School of Physics Hard Condensed Matter & AMO: Dr. Ken Burch, Boston College

Over the past few years there has been an explosion of interest in materials whose electronic structure posses a non-trivial topology. In part the interest is fundamental, ranging from the possibility to observe new states of matter driven by spin-orbit coupling. However the potential emergence of Majorana fermions, predicted absence of back-scattering and spin-momentum locking makes these promising candidates for applications. Nonetheless, most observation of topological transport to date have been limited to low temperatures, as have demonstrations of superconducting proximity effects needed for the mergence of Majorana. In this talk I will discuss our groups efforts to understand the mechanisms limiting transport at high temperatures using optical spectroscopy. In addition I will discuss our work pushing the boundaries of the proximity effect into high temperature superconductors.