M. Zahid Hasan

Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics at Princeton University. PhD (Stanford University & SLAC, 2002). Robert H. Dicke fellow at Princeton (2002). Visiting Miller Professor at UC Berkeley/Visiting Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (2016-). Research Areas: Quantum Physics of Matter; Quantum Topology; Emergent Phenomena. Current research focus: Novel phases of topological & correlated quantum matter and exotic superconductors. Hasan helped launch the field of Topological Insulators by directly detecting the predicted novel surface states and thoroughly demonstrating their unusual topological properties using advanced spin-sensitive spectroscopic techniques. Subsequently, he has theoretically and experimentally discovered many novel classes of topological matter using novel instrumentations and innovative methods. The field expanded to include topological semimetals, notably Weyl semimetals, whose states mimic massless fermions considered in quantum field theory. In 2015 Hasan observed the emergent Weyl fermions and novel topological Fermi arc surface states in topological semimetals. He has also made groundbreaking contributions in the subfields of topological phase transitions, topological magnets in 2D and 3D, topological nodal-line and drumhead metals, topological chiral crystals, topological Hopf link semimetals, topological superconductors, Helicoid-arc quantum states and Kagome magnets and materials, Chern magnets and charge-ordered Kagome superconductors enabled by innovative applications and development of experimental methods. These materials are broadly important for future device applications with higher energy efficiency, as quantum information science platforms and new emergent many-body physics. His experiments have been seminal in giving rise to the field of "Topological Quantum Matter" with more than 70,000 citations (over 200 publications), which is now growing vigorously at the nexus of condensed matter physics, materials engineering, nano-science, device physics & quantum engineering, chemistry and relativistic quantum field theory. His results have extended our old textbook level understanding of quantum matter and are now being featured in many standard textbooks of condensed matter physics world-wide. He is the Principal Investigator of the Laboratory for Topological Quantum Matter and Advanced Spectroscopy at Princeton University.