Distinguished Materials Seminar Series

***Refreshments at 3:45pm in Noyes lobby

Abstract:

Crystalline inorganic materials provide a highly tunable design space for tailoring electronic interactions and engineering new functionalities for solid-state applications. In particular, quantum materials---compounds where the uniquely quantum aspects of their electrons drive their behaviors---provide a fascinating playground for discovering new electronic states and for testing the predictions of many-body Hamiltonians. One of the most compelling design elements in quantum materials is the concept of frustration. Frustration or competing interactions between electrons destabilizes conventional order and promotes the formation of exotic states. In this talk, I will give an overview of some of these states sought in quantum materials and instantiate via examples where frustration is proposed to create surprising new ground states.

More about the Speaker:

Stephen Wilson currently serves as a Professor of Materials at UC Santa Barbara, where he also co-directs the National Science Foundation's Quantum Foundry and UCSB's Eddleman Quantum Institute. He obtained his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Tennessee followed by serving as a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. His research group works on the synthesis and advanced characterization of novel quantum materials, with a particular emphasis on unconventional superconductors, quantum magnets, and correlated metals. A recent focus has been exploring what new phenomena may emerge when materials are engineered to possess extreme frustration within their electronic interactions (charge, spin,and orbital). Prof. Wilson is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Neutron Scattering Society of America as well as a prior recipient of an NSF CAREER Award.