Time: 10:00am, 4th Aug, 2020

Speaker: Dr. Lin Jiao, National High Magnetic Field lab

Abstract: 

In this talk, I will focus on my recent work on two prototype heavy fermion materials SmB6 and UTe2. SmB6 is a Kondo insulator [1] while UTe2 [2] is a ferromagnetic superconductor, both are extremely rare examples of their categories. Using scanning tunneling microscopy at very low temperature, we demonstrate the peculiar topological surface states on symmetry-broken boundaries. By comparatively discussing these two materials, I would like to demonstrate how the strong electronic correlations can tailor the surface properties of heavy fermions in atomic scale. As a result, these materials can provide platforms to realize novel topological quantum states, such as "heavy" Dirac electrons in SmB6 [3, 4] and "chiral" Majorana fermions in UTe2 [5], which could lead potential applications in the field of quantum science and technology.

Ref.

1. M. Dzero, et al., Topological Kondo insulators. Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 106408 (2010)

2. S. Ran, et al., Nearly ferromagnetic spin-triplet superconductivity Science 365, 684 (2019)

3.  L. Jiao, et al., Additional energy scale in SmB6 at low temperature, Nat. Commun. 7, 13762 (2016)

4.  L. Jiao, et al., Magnetic and defect probes of the SmB6, Sci. Adv. 4, eaau4886 (2018)

5.  L. Jiao, et al., Chiral superconductivity in heavy-fermion metal UTe2, Nature 579, 523 (2020)

Brief CV of Dr. Lin Jiao:

Dr. Lin Jiao obtained his Ph.D in Condensed Matter Physics in 2014 at Zhejiang University under the supervision of Prof. Huiqiu Yuan. After graduation, he spent four years at Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, being partially sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship. In 2018, he moved to University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign as a Postdoctoral research associate. Recently, he joined the National High Magnetic Field lab as a research faculty member. His major research interests lie in studying: emergent behavior and critical fluctuations in the realm of strongly correlated materials (especially heavy fermions), symmetry protected massless fermions in topological material, and pairing symmetry of unconventional superconductors. Currently, he is focusing on combining transport and microscopic spectroscopy measurements in extreme conditions, including ultra-low temperatures and very high magnetic fields.