Division seminars

Dr. Stefan Zollner will give a series of public lectures on Optical Properties of Solids for the Institute of Physics. The lectures are recorded and placed online including other materials.

Part XI covers the following topics: Applications I: Anisotropic material.

The lectures follow the textbook by Mark Fox “Optical Properties of Solids”, with additional materials by the instructor to make the lectures more self-contained,...

Dr. Stefan Zollner will give a series of public lectures on Optical Properties of Solids for the Institute of Physics. The lectures are recorded and placed online including other materials.

Part IX covers the following topics: Interband transitions, van Hove singularities, critical-point lineshapes.

The lectures follow the textbook by Mark Fox “Optical Properties of Solids”, with additional materials by the instructor to make the...

Majorana states in atomic-scale magnet-superconductor hybrid systems have recently become of great interest because they can encode topological qubits and ultimately provide a new direction in topological quantum computation [1,2]. First, it will be demonstrated how well defined 1D atomic chains of magnetic adatoms on superconducting substrates with high spin-orbit coupling can be artificially fabricated using STM-based atom-manipulation techniques. Spin-polarized STM measurements [3] allow to reveal the presence of non-collinear spin textures, i.e. spin spiral ground states, stabilized by...

Two-dimensional (2D) epitaxial materials including hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) are frequently employed as templates for self-assembled molecular films and nanostructures [1]. A quantitative structural characterization of the respective interfaces and adsorbate geometries however is largely missing. After reviewing some examples of molecular self-assembly on hBN, I will report on the geometric and electronic structure of a prototypical organic/insulator/metal interface, namely metalloporphines (Co-P, Zn-P) on hBN/Cu(111), investigated by combining X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray...

Abstract: A thorough understanding of electronic structure and optical properties is essential to the discovery of new phenomena in many classes of materials. Quantities of interest could include the band structure, optical absorption, excitonic features, and much more. First principles calculations allow us to make such predictions even when established models fail and therefore help us develop new intuition. Preferably, we would like to use density functional theory (DFT) for such calculations, because the relative computational simplicity afforded by DFT allows us to...

Spin-orbit coupling gives rise in magnetic solids to a large number of effects that are at the same time of great scientific as well as technological interest. In fact they often play a central role in modern spintronics concepts and devices. As examples for this, results of investigations based on a fully relativistic Dirac formalism on the magneto-crystalline anisotropy, transport properties and the Gilbert damping parameter will be presented. As it will be demonstrated, a coherent treatment of the magnetic anisotropy can be achieved by including the Breit interaction that gives rise...