Unconventional pathways to unconventional superconductivity

Superconductivity represents a striking state of matter characterized by dissipationless flow of current.  In this talk, I will present new, unconventional pathways to realizing unconventional superconductivity from relatively simple ingredients.  I will first review conventional superconductivity in which phonons mediate electronic pairing and superconducting behavior, and discuss limitations on Tc at strong electron-phonon coupling.  I will then present three new unconventional pathways to circumvent these limitations: 1. Superconductivity from superfluidity of light bipolarons which arise from strong electron-bond-phonon coupling at small electronic densities where conventional limitations on Tc do not hold, 2. Superconductivity in novel organic materials such as the recently synthesized alkali-doped terphenyl crystals from strong local electronic correlations in quasi-one-dimensional ladder geometry, and 3. Dynamically-induced superconductivity (and disorder) in optically driven metals whose vibrational modes are 'pumped' at initial time and whose response is 'probed' at later times by means of tailored light pulses.