Projects

Geometric constraints in ultra-thin films often lead to properties that are radically different from those in a material's bulk sample. We study the various complexities (dimensional reduction, crystal-fields, surface ad-atoms), the emergence of pronounced non-local fluctuations, and their signatures in spectral observables.

Correlated materials are very sensitive to external perturbations. In thin-films the strain induced by the substrate can therefore be used to tune even fundamental properties of the deposited material, allowing, e.g., to optimize thermoelectrical effects and superconducting or metal-insulator transition temperatures.

An ideal solid is a perfect repetition of a well-defined structural motive. Actual samples, however, always include structural imperfections, chemical impurities or off-stoichiometries. In materials with strong electronic correlations, this extrinsic complexity perturbs an already delicate interplay of charge, spin and orbital degrees of freedom. To date there are no tools to realistically simulate properties of disordered correlated materials.