The International Doctorate Program is focussing on investigating the fundamental properties and potential applications of topological insulators. Topological insulators are a new state of matter with unique physical characteristics: their surfaces or edges are electrically conducting while the bulk of the material remains insulating. Additionally, the electron spin plays a decisive role for the conduction properties in these surfaces or edges, making topological insulators a very interesting subject for scientific studies. This also means that topological insulators are prime candidates for potential spintronic applications.

Our research will focus on the material systems HgTe, Bi2Se3 and InAs/GaSb.

These materials will be used to investigate interference effects, density of states, THz conduction and electron phonon coupling in topological insulator systems and topological insulator/superconductor hybrid systems.