GHN-colloquium with Prof. Susanne Stemmer

Summary

The GHN-Colloquium talk series features the female scientists of the Grete-Hermann-Network (GHN)–a newly founded international network of female researchers in condensed matter physics and neighboring research areas. Distinguished female researchers are invited to give a lecture on their research and current projects, as well as about their career paths, to inspire young female scientists in particular, and to exchange ideas. After the official talk there will be an internal GHN-networking event.

In our very fist GHN-Colloquium – on 25 November 2020 - we are happy to welcome Prof. Susanne Stemmer from the University of California Santa Barbara, who will give a scientific online talk about Topological Semimetal Thin Films.

Talk abstract

Topology has emerged as a new design principle for materials that can host a wealth of novel properties. Thin films and heterostructures of topological matter offer opportunities to control and manipulate their electronic states and associated phenomena, for example, via electric field effect, strain, or symmetry breaking. In this presentation, we will discuss our recent progress in the growth of thin films of the three-dimensional Dirac semimetal cadmium arsenide (Cd3As2) by molecular beam epitaxy. We show that high-mobility, epitaxial Cd3As2 films can be grown on III-V semiconductor substrates and heterostructures. We show that transport in thin films is dominated by topological surface states and is extremely sensitive to the surface Fermi level. We discuss quantum transport from the surface states that can be observed under electric and magnetic fields. For example, we show that films grown in different orientations host different types of topological surface states, which give rise to distinctly different quantum Hall effects.

About Susanne Stemmer

Professor Susanne Stemmer is Professor at the Materials Department at the University of California in Santa Barbara. Before she went to the USA, she started her scientific career as a Diploma student at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany) in the field of Materials Science and Engineering and obtained her PhD from the University of Stuttgart (Germany).

Her research interests include the development of quantitative scanning transmission electron microscopy techniques, quantum materials, the development of molecular beam epitaxy of novel materials and heterostructures, and the exploitation of novel transport phenomena for new electronic devices.