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.