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, which will be executed by combining the theoretical methods of Haldane, Bernevig, Lian, 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). The materials studied will 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 will explore exotic neutral modes in fractionalized insulators, explore new topological quantum states in correlated flat-band electronic systems, and detect 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 will be 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, co-leader (Physics)
Leslie Schoop, co-leader (Chemistry)

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

Collaborators
Claudia Felser (Max Planck Inst., Dresden, Germany) 
David Mandrus (The University of Tennessee)
Stephen Nagler (Oak Ridge National Lab)
Max Hirschberger (University of Tokyo, Japan)
Yu-Min Hu (Tsinghua University, China)                                                                      

Pascal Manuel (ISIS Neutron & Muon Facility, STFC Rutherford Appleton Lab, UK)
Florian Pielnhofer (University of Regensburg, Germany)
Nicolas Regnault (École Normale Supérieure, Physique, Paris, France)
Andrei Varykhalov (Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Germany)
Maia Vergniory (Donostia International Physics Center, Spain)