Gilles Montambaux is Directeur de Recherche Classe Exceptionnelle CNRS, Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique, Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, Orsay, France
Activities: http://users.lps.u-psud.fr/montambaux
Publications: http://users.lps.u-psud.fr/montambaux/publications.htm
Place: Institut Henri Poincaré, 11 rue Pierre et Marie Curie, F-75005 Paris / France
Time: 15:45
Abstract:
The miniaturization of electronic circuits and the development of nanotechnologies have made it possible to highlight new quantum effects that govern electrical transport. These phenomena appear at an intermediate scale between the macroscopic scale of our daily life and the atomic, nanoscopic scale. This is called the mesoscopic world. Mesoscopic physics develops at the crossroads of both applied and conceptually new issues. The quantum character of the electrons that behave like waves becomes essential. Here we describe some of these novel effects in which the combined role of phase coherence and disorder leads to subtle effects. It becomes difficult to separate the quantum object to be studied and the macroscopic world that measures it. These new properties are not specific to the electrons but are also manifested in the propagation of other waves, light, microwave, acoustic, etc. The analogies between these different thematic fields are fruitful.