Miracle of Topological Phases of Quantum Matter: Schroedinger to Dirac/Einstein

The revolution started by the recent discovery of topological insulators has turned out to be the proverbial tip of the much larger iceberg of exotic phases of quantum matter driven by spin-orbit coupling effects.[1]  Electronic states protected by time-reversal, crystalline and particle-hole symmetries lead to novel materials that support Weyl, Dirac, Majorana and other exotic fermions. I will discuss how common notions of topology in geometry get carried into materials physics and our recent work aimed at predicting new topological materials. I will also comment on potential of topological materials as platforms for next-generation technologies, and some recent breakthroughs toward first-principles modeling of correlated materials such as the cuprate high-temperature superconductors [2].

References:

[1] A. Bansil, H. Lin and T. Das, Reviews of Modern Physics 88, 021004 (2016). 
[2] J. W. Furness et al., Nature Communications Physics 1, 11 (2018).