Dirac Materials in One, Two and Three Dimensions

Dirac materials, with their characteristic linear bandstructure mimicking relativistic systems, offer attractive features such as potentially high electron mobility for exploring a variety of quantum phenomena spanning the dimensions. Our lab studies one-dimensional carbon nanotubes, two-dimensional graphene and three-dimensional (magnetic) topological insulators & semimetals. All of these materials exhibit fascinating fundamental and emergent phenomena due to the combination of symmetry, non-trivial band topology, quantum confinement, proximity effects and electronic correlations.

The Deshpande group works at the forefront of such research to synthesize/nanofabricate atomically-thin nanostructures and heterostructures, develop hybrid measurement tools and explore novel properties and applications of such materials.

Below are some major themes of our research.

Realizations of Effective Field Theoretical Phenomena We look for manifestations of effective field phenomena such as Dirac/Weyl/Majorana fermions and axions which were first predicted in high energy physics. Image adapted from Balents et al., Physics 4, 36.

Interplay of Symmetry, Geometry and Topology We realize topological order through the interplay of symmetries (e.g. parity and time reversal) together with perturbations such as spin-orbit coupling and strain. Image adapted from Song et al., PNAS 112 (35) 10879.

Dirac Flat Bands and Strongly Correlated Phenomena We create flat electronic bands in twisted 2D materials toward realizing strongly-correlated phenomena including superconductivity and spontaneous ferromagnetism. Image credit: Khalaf et al, Science Advances 7 (19), eabf5299.

Applications We are interested in the revolutionary applications of these materials/phenomena in areas such as topological electronics, topological spintronics and topological quantum computing. Image: Scientific American, Quantum Computing with Knots.

Previous research highlights include:

(Coming soon!)

See Publications for more info.