September 16, 2013 – September 19, 2013

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Location

Paris, France

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Photo Credits: www.home-hunts.net, www.quantum.gmu.edu, www.intechweb.wordpress.com

Organizers

Marc Gabay, University of Paris, Orsay
Aharon Kapitulnik, Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials
Antoine Georges, Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau
Helene Bouchiat, University of paris, Orsay
Philipe Bourges, Saclay University

 

Important Links

Topology, Correlations and Interfaces in Quantum Matter Website
Registration

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Overview

There are some long-­‐standing open problems in condensed matter physics that usually dictate the agenda of the field. Maybe the most notable issues are related to the study of strongly correlated electron systems and the search for new organizing principles of matter, especially in the quantum regime. While these issues will continue to guide us, the past decade has seen new topics emerging to the forefront of condensed matter physics (CMP), all of which are strongly tied to advances in materials fabrication. 

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In this conference we want to emphasize three new topics that each emerged independently, but we believe that time has come for tying in possible connections among these topics. These are:

1. Topological Materials with Dirac dispersion – Graphene and Topological Insulators

2. Oxide Interfaces and the emergence of high mobility electron gasses at interfaces.

3. Novel electronic order and incipient order occurring as general features of doped Mott Insulators (stripes, etc.)

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Topological insulators are new states of matter that are not adiabatically connected to conventional insulators and semiconductors. A topological insulator (TI) has a full energy gap in the bulk, and contains gapless surface states that are protected by time reversal symmetry (TRS). Much of the research in this field is devoted to the study of the “protected” properties of such surface states, and the possible realization of Majorana Fermions in TI/Superconductors hybrids. A central theme of current CMP research is to extend the beautiful ideas summarized above into the realm of strongly interacting systems. In fact, most of the proposals for new materials in that field involve oxides, and oxide interfaces.

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Similarly, a central issue in the physics of strongly correlated systems, and in particular the doped Mott insulators such as the cuprates has been the search for time reversal symmetry breaking (TRSB) states, as well as phases of electronic charge and spin order. Whether such states are “friends or foes” to superconductivity that may appear at yet lower temperatures is another important issue. At the same time, following intense research on single layer grapheme, much of the recent effort in graphene physics concentrates on novel electronic states in bilayer and trilayer grapheme. TRSB states as well as novel charge order states have been predicted and claimed to be observed in high-­‐quality samples.

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Finally, as the area of oxide interfaces grows, and new and better bilayer and multilayer systems are fabricated, more physics, beyond just searching for superconductivity is being studied. Maybe a central theme in that field is the role of spin-­‐orbit interaction. Here we make the connection again to topological insulators and to grapheme physics, as well as to other correlated oxides where spin-­‐orbit interaction has been shown only recently to be of importance (e.g. in Sr2RuO4).