Supervisor: Irene Aguilera. Combining nontrivial band topology with magnetic order can lead to the emergence of exotic phenomena such as the Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect (QAHE). In Amsterdam, extensive experimental and theoretical research is ongoing to design the optimal candidate for QAHE that is stable up to technologically relevant temperatures. The efforts concentrate on the family of MnSb2Te4.
Recently, our experimental colleagues at Mark Golden’s group have observed a band anomaly in the band structure of MnSb2Te4 that we speculate could be the result of electron-magnon scattering. In this project, you will calculate the electronic spectral function of MnSb2Te4 in the presence and absence of magnons to elucidate the role of electron-magnon interactions in its electronic structure. The theoretical spectral functions will then be compared to the already available spectral functions obtained by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy at Mark’s group.
This project is embedded in the Ab Initio Quantum Materials (AIQM) group. The work runs in collaboration with the experimental groups of Anna Isaeva (growth) and Mark Golden (ARPES). You will use methods based on many-body perturbation theory (MBPT) that are currently implemented in the first-principles code SPEX. This project is for you if you have a solid background in mathematics, electromagnetism, and quantum mechanics, and you are interested in numerical simulations and properties of matter.
Literature:
Magnetic topological insulators.
Electron-magnon scattering in elementary ferromagnets from first principles.
Other projects: In the AIQM group, we do projects that are heavier in calculations (like the one above), but also others that are heavier in math, or in programming. Contact me for a project more tailored to your interest.