Final Report Summary - TOPOLECTRICS (Emergence of Topological Phases from Electronic Interactions)
Our ERC project TOPOLECTRICS set the goal to deepen our understanding of correlated, topological electronic phases of matter. Within the course of our 5 year journey, as documented by more than 60 publications in peer-reviewed high-rank journals, major breakthroughs have been achieved by our group in different subfields, reaching from topological superconductivity over frustrated magnetism to material design for topological insulators and semimetals. To highlight one central area of progress, we have managed to analyze, propose, and discover Bi/SiC as the first material exhibiting the quantum spin Hall effect at room temperature. This is a major step, as previous material instances would only show this effect at lowest temperatures of only few Kelvin while any serious technological application of topological matter eventually has to reach an operational environment that is amenable to technological device design. Along with cutting-edge methodological developments and the establishment of an active collaborative international research network, the TOPOLECTRICS ERC starting grant project has exceeded our expectations, and we are looking forward to the upcoming years of research in which we will continue to pursue the directions whose foundation was laid within the TOPOLECTRICS project.