IRG-A: Topological Quantum Matter

 

IRG-A students, postdocs & faculty lunch meeting Oct. 28, 2021
IRG-A lunch meeting with students, postdocs, and faculty on Oct. 28, 2021.

  
Topological and interacting quantum materials provide tremendous opportunities for the discovery and manipulation of new electronic phenomena. Underscoring these potential opportunities is the realization that topological properties can protect quantum states and novel excitations, where information and entanglement can be uniquely encoded to be more resistant to environmental decoherence. To predict and discover novel quantum states in materials requires a multidisciplinary approach, and is being executed by combining the theoretical methods of Haldane, Bernevig, Regnault, and Sheng, together with materials synthesis by Schoop and Cava (supplementary crystal growth by Koohpayeh), and transport and spectroscopic measurements by Ong, Wu and Yazdani, with angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, ARPES, by Valla). 

The materials studied include spin liquid systems, novel 2D systems and their twisted stacks, topological superconducting systems, nonsymmorphic materials, and 3D novel quantum lattices. With this broad range of materials systems, the IRG is exploring exotic neutral modes in fractionalized insulators, exploring new topological quantum states in correlated flat-band electronic systems, and detecting Majorana fermions and the novel edge modes of topological superconductors. The IRG will also search for and synthesize new materials, with a focus on the topological properties of magnetic systems, which have not been well investigated. The IRG’s efforts in materials discovery is augmented by the application of machine learning techniques, combined with topological quantum chemistry -- a new theoretical approach to aid in the discovery of topological materials that has resulted in an expansive database of potential materials to be explored. 

Co-Leaders 
N. Phuan Ong (Physics)
Leslie Schoop, (Chemistry)

Senior Investigators
B. Andrei Bernevig (Physics)
Robert J. Cava (Chemistry)
F. Duncan M. Haldane (Physics)
Biao Lian (Physics)
Donna N. Sheng (Cal. State University-Northridge)
Sanfeng Wu (Physics)
Ali Yazdani (Physics)

Collaborators
Seyed Koohpayeh (Johns Hopkins University)
Arnab Banerjee (Oak Ridge National Lab)
Stephan Nagler (Oak Ridge National Lab)
Nicholas Kioussis (Cal. State University-Northridge)
Tonica Valla (Brookhaven National Lab) 

IRG-A lunch meeting with students, postdocs, and faculty on Dec. 2, 2021.
IRG-A lunch meeting with students, postdocs, and faculty on Dec. 2, 2021.

IRG-A publications 
IRG-A highlights