Over the past years, we have been witnessing a rapid expansion of research activities in the field of topological condensed matter physics. The combination of topology and many-body interactions promises the emergence of novel and unexpected phenomena. New materials, even atomically thin ones, were found to host exotics types of superconductivity, fractional quasiparticle excitations, and topological magnetic textures. These discoveries have sparked fresh research activities in the prediction and experimental investigation of new quantum materials. Moiré superlattices emerged as the ideal test bed to study a variety of topological and strongly correlated states with unprecedented parameter control. Magnetic metals were identified as a rich platform in which charge-spin interactions results in novel skyrmion phases and topological electronic states. The systematic classification of topological phases of matter has further created new avenues to realize a zoo of materials with unusual electronic properties. At the same time, novel concepts to detect and manipulate Majorana zero energy modes in various types of topological heterostructures that host fractional quasiparticle applications are being proposed and could become useful for quantum computation.

Positioned at the interface of material science and condensed matter physics, research on topological quantum materials is an interdisciplinary research area that develops rapidly. During this exciting period of time, this workshop aims at bringing together young and untenured independent research leaders to establish a collaborative and stimulating environment and to discuss novel ideas and research directions in the diverse field of topological quantum materials. The workshop follows from a series of “Young Research Leaders” workshops, initiated and partially funded by the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids (MPI-CPfS). The first meeting in 2016 was organized in collaboration with the University of Mainz (within the SPICE program). In 2017, we met jointly together with the Max Planck Institute of Solid-State Physics and the MPI-CPfS, while in 2018 the conference was held at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. Our last workshop was held at the Flat Iron Institute in New York City in 2019, before the further continuation was temporarily suspended owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Group Photo

Organizers and the participants gather for a group photo. More photos can be found here.