Stephen Wilson (UC Santa Barbara): Materials Science and Engineering Seminar

Title: “Kagome Metals and Their Unusual Electronic Properties”

Stephen Wilson

Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara

Stephen Wilson currently serves as a Professor in the Materials Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he also co-directs the National Science Foundation’s Quantum Foundry on campus.  He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2007, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in Berkeley, California.  Prof. Wilson’s research group focuses on the synthesis and characterization of a variety of quantum materials, with particular emphasis given to unconventional superconductors, correlated metals, and quantum magnets.  His group also works to develop new single crystal growth methods and employs advanced neutron and synchrotron x-ray scattering techniques/spectroscopies for the study of quantum materials.

Research Synopsis:

In this talk, I will discuss new inroads in the study of electronic order within classes of metals built from kagome lattices or networks of corner sharing triangles.  The electronic band structures of these compounds are known to host a series of features such as Dirac crossings, saddle points, and flat bands at select carrier fillings.  Tuning the electron filing about these features has the potential to stabilize a variety of exotic electronic states such as orbital magnetism, bond density wave order, and unconventional superconductivity; however experimental realization of these states has been a historical challenge.  Recently, a number of new compounds built from kagome lattices with band fillings near each of these features have been discovered, and I will provide an overview of progress in studying their anomalous properties.  Particular focus will be given to electronic instabilities realized in kagome metals with their Fermi levels close to the saddle points in their band structures.