Abstract: Materials with exotic properties have become a key driver in advancing condensed matter and materials physics. Layered materials, in particular, offer exceptional platforms for exploring a wide range of quantum phases and phenomena. The distinct structural characteristics of these compounds allow for significant tunability through chemical or mechanical methods, enabling precise manipulation of electronic states and properties. Moreover, the ability to obtain atomically thin flakes of these materials opens up new possibilities for studying novel properties in reduced dimensions and for creating intricate material designs by constructing various heterostructures. In this talk, I will provide an overview of our recent work on topological and magnetic materials. By leveraging the intertwined lattice, spin, charge, and topology degrees of freedom in these materials, our research explores the engineering of electronic states through lattice and time-reversal symmetry. This manipulation leads to a range of intriguing phenomena, including the emergence of new surface electronic states, potential enhancements in electronic correlations, and insulator-to-metal transitions, among others.

Bio: Jin Hu is an associate professor of physics at the University of Arkansas. He earned his BS degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2008 and his PhD degree from Tulane University in 2013. Following the completion of his doctorate, he served as a postdoctoral associate and later as a research assistant professor at Tulane University before joining the University of Arkansas in 2017. He has been working on various quantum material systems including unconventional superconductors, topological materials, 2D materials and published more than 120 papers. He received the DOE Early Career Award in 2021 and the NSF Career Award in 2023. He is part of the NSF MonArk Quantum Foundry and DOE µATOMs EFRC.