The mission of this program is to develop cross‐cutting concepts, theories and methods that advance forefront themes of materials/condensed matter physics strategic to LBNL’s BES‐MSE portfolio, bringing together expertise from advanced ab initio methods to leading‐edge correlated electron approaches. The activities involve exploring, understanding, and computing new material properties and behaviors. Areas studied cover: superconductors and mechanisms; excited state properties of novel bulk as well as quasi two‐ and one‐dimensional systems; theoretical and methodological developments; and symmetry and topological phases of matter. A variety of theoretical techniques are employed, ranging from first‐principles electronic structure calculations to new conceptual and computational frameworks suitable for complex materials/nanostructures and strongly interacting electron systems. Emphases are both to investigate realistic material systems employing microscopic first‐principles approaches, including many‐body effects, as well as to study physically motivated model systems.
The concepts, methods, and results obtained have broad benefits to the materials science community and the program maintains close interactions with experimentalists. It makes use and interacts strongly with unique resources at LBNL, including the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), the Molecular Foundry, and the Advanced Light Source (ALS).