FACULTY
Michael Tinkham
Rumford Professor of Physics & Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics, Emeritus
PhD 1954, MIT
Michael Tinkham’s s research has focused on superconductivity for many years, as recorded in his classic textbook. In recent years he has been active in studying the unique properties of materials when sample dimensions are reduced to the nanometer range. Such studies are motivated both by their intrinsic scientific interest and by their potential importance in finding new ways to fabricate ultracompact electronic components on a molecular size scale.
Recent research has focused on transport properties of superconducting nanowires, single-walled carbon nanotubes, and magnetic systems. The nanowires appear to show some resistance all the way down to absolute zero, presumably due to macroscopic quantum tunneling of the phase of the superconducting wave function. In carbon nanotubes, we have observed resonant scattering by both natural and artificial defects, and also Fabry-Perot interference patterns stemming from quantum electron waves traveling in the nanotube, in analogy to electromagnetic waves in a waveguide. In the spintronics area, we have recently made the first direct electronic measurement of the spin Hall effect.
- "Ge/Si nanowire mesoscopic Josephson junctions", Jie Xiang, A. Vidan, M. Tinkham, R. M. Westervelt, and Charles M. Lieber, Nature Nanotechnology, 1, 208 (2006).
- "Direct electronic measurement of the spin Hall Effect ", S. O. Valenzuela and M. Tinkham, Nature 442, 176 (2006).
- "Spin-Polarized Tunneling in Room Temperature Mesoscopic Spin Valves", S. O. Valenzuela and M. Tinkham, Applied Physics Letters 85, 5914 (2004).
- "Measuring Uniaxial Strain in Individual Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes: Resonance Raman Spectra of AFM-Modified SWNTs", S. B. Cronin, A. K. Swan, M. S. Unlu, B. B. Goldberg, M. S. Dresselhaus, and M. Tinkham, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 167401 (2004).
- Introduction to Superconductivity, 2nd Ed. , McGraw-Hill, NY, 1996. [reprinted by DOver in paperback 2004]
- "Hysteretic I-V Curves in Superconducting Nanowires," M. Tinkham, J. U. Free, C. N. Lau, and N. Markovic, Phys. Rev. B 68, 134515 (2003).
- "Fabry-Perot Interference in a Nanotube Electron Waveguide," W. Liang, M. Bockrath, D. Bozovic, J. Hafner, M. Tinkham, and H. Park, Nature 411, 665-669 (2001).
- "Quantum Phase-Slips in Superconducting Nanowires," C. N. Lau, N. Markovic, M. Bockrath, A. Bezryadin, and M. Tinkham, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 217003 (2001).