The goal of the Quantum Materials program is to understand, manipulate, and control interacting forms of order in condensed matter systems that arise through interactions shaped by quantum physics. Those quantum materials are a fertile ground for discovery of new phases and phenomena with potential to advance energy, transportation, medical and information technologies. In these materials, quantum effects are intensified by the combination of frustration, strong interaction and low-dimensionality. Competing spin, orbital, and lattice interactions yield a multiplicity of nearly degenerate ground states and complex phase diagrams that can be challenging to characterize. 

This program has two main thrusts. Studies of non-locality and coherence in magnetic quantum materials will extend the understanding of spin dynamics in solids to new regimes and classes of materials, while studies of superconductivity, intertwined phases and phase transitions in strongly correlated quantum materials will lead to a better understanding of the interplay between superconductivity and other electronic orders that intertwine with it, and will probe novel quantum phase transitions between superconductivity and intertwined orders.