Our research
interest is to explore emergent phenomena and understand the underlying mechanism in quantum materials, focuing on strongly correlated materials, geometrically frustrated magnets, topological materials, and complex oxide heterostructures.
Strongly correlated materials refer to a wide class of materials where the electron-electron Coulomb interaction is large and plays a key role in determining materials’ properties. The interplay among spin, charge, and lattice degrees of freedom often lead to exotic phases. For geometrically frustrated magnets, the competing interactions between magnetic ions placed on regular lattice sites can result in a large degeneracy of spins states, giving rise to a rich variety of unconventional magnetic phases. We also investigate quantum materials which may exhibit topological magnons or topological electronic properties. In topological materials, the integrated Berry curvature of magnon bands or electronic bands over the Brillouin zone remains invariant under continuous deformation of the Hamiltonian. Furthermore, we have been interested in the interfacial phenomena in heterostructures composed of different complex oxides stacking on top of each. The interfacial electronic, lattice and orbital reconstructions can lead to remarkable magnetic and electronic properties in oxide heterostructures that are drastically different from bulk counterparts.
We study
materials’ properties by combining various neutron scattering techniques together with bulk electronic and thermal transport measurements. Specifically, we investigate materials’ nuclear and magnetic structures, magnetic excitation, interfacial spin structure, and electronic and thermal transport properties. In addition, we also synthesizes new materials in polycrystalline or single crystal forms using solid state chemistry method, flux and chemical vapor transport methods.