Rise of Topological Quantum Maerials on Defect Engineering

Sean Oh (Rutgers Physics and Astronomy)

Since the notion of topological insulator (TI) was envisioned about a decade ago, topology has become a new paradigm in condensed matter physics, as recognized by last year's Nobel Prize in physics, awarded to three theoretical physicists who laid foundation for the current topological boom. The realization of topology as a generic property of materials has soon led to numerous predictions of unprecedented phenomena such as magnetic dipoles, axion electrodynamics, resistance-free conduction etc. However, most of these predictions have not materialized in real materials, presumably due to uncontrollable parasitic defects. Here, I will briefly review what topological materials are and show how we can overcome this problem and reveal various topological quantum  effects via defect engineering.