Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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MM: Fachverband Metall- und Materialphysik

MM 68: Electronic Structure Theory: New Concepts and Developments in Density Functional Theory and Beyond - VII

MM 68.1: Invited Talk

Thursday, March 23, 2017, 16:00–16:30, GER 38

Spectacular success of DFT in predicting novel topological phases — •Arun Bansil — Northeastern Univ, Boston USA

The revolutionary 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. The consideration of electronic states protected by time-reversal, crystalline and particle-hole symmetries has led to the prediction of many novel materials that can support Weyl, Dirac and Majorana fermions, and to new types of topological crystalline and Kondo insulators, and quantum spin Hall insulators with large band gaps. The first-principles DFT-based band theory paradigm has been a key player not only in this discovery process but also in identifying salient characteristics of topological states, enabling direct and sharpened confrontation between theory and experiment. [1] I will discuss our recent theoretical work aimed at predicting topological materials and identify cases where the materials have been realized successfully. [2-10] I will also comment on the potential of topological materials as next generation platforms for manipulating spin and charge transport and other applications.

[1] Bansil, Lin and Das, Rev. Mod. Phys. 88, 021004 (2016). [2] Chang et al, Sci. Adv. 2, e1600295 (2016). [3] Huang et al., PNAS 113, 1180 (2016). [4] Zheng et al., ACS Nano 10, 1378 (2016). [5] Xu et al., Science 349, 613 (2015). [6] Zeljkovic et al., Nat. Mat. 14, 318 (2015). [7] He et al., Nat. Mat. 14, 577 (2015). [8] Xu et al., Nat. Phys. 11, 748 (2015). [9] Crisostomo et al., Nano Lett. 15, 6568 (2015). [10] Xu et al., Sci. Adv. 1, e1501092 (2015).