Searches for direct pair production of third generation squarks with the ATLAS detector

Naturalness arguments for weak-scale supersymmetry favour supersymmetric partners of the third generation quarks with masses not too far from those of their Standard Model counterparts. Top or bottom squarks with masses of a few hundred GeV can also give rise to large direct pair production rates at the LHC. The talk presents recent ATLAS results from searches for direct stop and sbottom pair production, using 20/fb of 8 TeV pp collision data, and prospects for 13 TeV Run-2 data are also included