8 January-23 April 2010

Hereby we announce the 2010 edition of the biennial Ph.D. (graduate) Casimir Course on the physics of electron transport in nano- and mesoscale structures and devices, a collaboration of the Kavli Institute of NanoScience Delft and the Leiden Institute of Physics.

Lecturers: Gerrit Bauer, Yaroslav Blanter (coordinators), Carlo Beenakker and Jan van Ruitenbeek.

Dates and venues: The course consists of 12 sessions and a final session, in principle weekly on Friday afternoons from 15.00 to 17.00 h, starting 8 January 2010 in Delft (see attached schedule). Lectures will be given either in Room E of the Applied Physics building of the TU Delft, see campus map, and in Room 214 of the Huygens Laboratorium in Leiden, see visitors information.

Subject-matter: Electron quantum transport in small structures is a large field of research. Especially for newcomers it is difficult to get an overview over the rapid developments on many fronts. The present course is intended to assist Ph.D. students and postdocs in the process to get to grips with the field by in-depth lectures on crucial concepts and ideas starting from the roots of mesoscopic transport physics with phenomena like quantum point contacts and Anderson localization. Advanced topics such as superconducting and magnetic correlations in nanoscopic circuits, spintronics, molecular electronics, topological insulators, and graphene will be addressed as well.

Audience: The course is mainly intended for the Ph.D. students and postdocs associated to the Casimir Research School. Sufficiently motivated master students are welcome as well, but knowledge of quantum mechanics and condensed matter physics on an advanced level is a prerequisite.

Organization: A typical session consists of a frontal lecture by one of the organizers, followed by a presentation of a key research paper and solutions of a homework problem by selected participants. An attendance list will be kept. As final task each participant composes a "Research Proposal" that will be critically examined by a jury on criteria of originality, importance and technical feasibility. 5 ECTS credits will be awarded only to those participants who attend the course regularly (and actively) and submit a final "Research Proposal" that is approved by the jury.

Registration: If you intend to participate and did not register yet, please do so at your earliest convenience by sending a message to Mrs. Marjolein de Niet-de Jager ( M.deNiet-deJager@tudelft.nl ).