9733862 Tyson This is a CAREER award to an African-American scientist at an urban university with a large enrollment of students from underrepresented groups. The project will study high temperature superconducting materials such as yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO), and its praseodymium- and terbium-doped variants. The critical temperature and ground state resistivity of YBCO are altered significantly by exposure to optical radiation (photodoping), by application external of pressure, by changes in the oxygen content and by the replacement of yttrium by praseodymium or terbium. However, the relation of these changes in electron transport to local local atomic order is poorly understood. The project addresses this issue by correlating transport properties with changes in the local structure of oriented bulk materials, oriented films and single crystals as determined by x-ray absorption spectroscopy. This should provide fundamental information about the superconducting state in these multinary oxide materials. The project will integrate work at NJIT laboratories with off-site research at national synchrotron light laboratories. Graduate, undergraduate, and high school students will conduct the research. The educational component of the project will expose undergraduates, high school students and teachers to modern research techniques. The PI is developing a research and teaching program targeted at Newark area high school students and NJIT undergraduates. It involves an undergraduate laboratory with advanced experimental methods and techniques, which link basic science training with research on transition metal oxides. %%% This is a CAREER award to an African-American scientist at an urban university with a large enrollment of students from underrepresented groups. The research will investigate the atomic structure in several high-temperature supercon ductor materials. Among other applications, these materials show promise to lead to low-loss power transmission lines at temperatures approaching room temperature. The mechanism for superconductivity in these materials is still not understood. To shed light on this problem, the project attempts to determine what atomic structural characteristics are correlated with the superconductivity and other transport properties in these materials. The research program integrates work at NJIT with off-site reserach at national research laboratories, such as synchrotron light sources. Graduate, undergraduate, and high school students will conduct the research. The educational component of the project will expose undergraduates, high school students and teachers to modern research techniques. The PI is developing a research and teaching program targeted at Newark area high school students and NJIT undergraduates. It involves an undergraduate laboratory with advanced experimental methods and techniques, which link basic science training with research on transition metal oxides. ***
