TRR 80: From Electronic Correlations to Functionality
Type of Funding: DFG Programmes, Collaborative Research Centres
Abstract:
The collaborative research center TRR 80 connects fundamental research on emergent new materials properties driven by strong electronic correlations with the focussed exploration for possible new functionalities in technological devices. At the heart of the materials properties of interest are the strong interplay of charge, spin, orbital, and lattice degrees of freedom, leading to a multitude of complex new phases on different length and time-scales with fascinating electronic properties as well as novel generic excitations. Systematic determination of large susceptibilities to applied fields, perturbations and defects yield complex phase diagrams, which represent a major avenue towards tailored functionalities that may be exploited in designed composite-systems. Research in TRR 80 focusses in particular on novel phenomena in d- and f-electron materials.
Since the start of the Transregio in 2010 the successful development of experimental and theoretical tools to tackle correlated electron systems provided a basis for shaping and advancing this mission in the second and upcoming third funding period. These activities are organized in terms of three research areas comprising the synthesis and characterization of correlated quantum matter with non-trivial topological properties (research area E), the investigation of their emergent excitations utilizing a variety of dynamical methods (research area F) and utilization of reduced dimensions and interfaces for functionalization (research area G). Within the third funding period of the Transregio, the most interesting and promising avenues to realize and implement novel functionalities will be addressed by combined experimental and theoretical efforts across the different research areas E, F, and G. These arise, in particular, from the interplay of electronic correlations and non-trivial topological winding in real and reciprocal space, driven by large spin-orbit coupling, and from electronic reconstructions in thin films, heterostructures, surfaces and interfaces.
Contact Person at UA Ruhr:
Prof. Dr. Rossitza Pentcheva, University of Duisburg-Essen