Speaker: Ryan E. Baumbach (University of California, Santa Cruz, Department of Physics)

Host: Chandan Setty

Title: Foundations for Designing Correlated Electron Materials

Abstract: Strongly correlated electron systems provide an abundance of many-body states, where materials-driven discoveries have repeatedly advanced our understanding of phenomena such as high-temperature superconductivity, metal-insulator transitions, exotic magnetism, and more – providing the foundations for key technologies. This has led to intense international competition, with active frontiers in the areas of topology, geometry, and symmetry/dimensionality – all of which center on the idea that high functionality arises from balancing the electron kinetic (t) and potential (U) energies of many-body quasiparticles. This is a powerful concept because it connects seemingly distinct states of matter and points towards universal principles: e.g., magnetism is frequently tied to unconventional superconductivity. But given the complexity of real materials, the question of how to harness t-U balance to design specific collective electronic states from elemental building blocks is far from being solved. This poses a grand challenge for materials physics, where even modest advances in understanding t-U design would dramatically accelerate the discovery of desirable quantum phenomena, leading to development of fundamental theories and new technologies that are needed for computing, energy, life sciences, and beyond. In this talk, I will examine factors that give rise to targeted quantum phenomena and will present chemical-structural concepts to guide the exploration of strongly correlated electron materials. I will also highlight the diverse synthesis approaches required to fully leverage the chemical breadth of the periodic table. By integrating these perspectives, I aim to describe a cohesive path toward developing the next generation of quantum materials for society.

Bio:  Dr. Ryan Baumbach is an experimental condensed matter physicist specializing in novel materials synthesis and quantum phenomena. He earned his B.S. in Physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz (2002) and went on to complete his Ph.D. (2009) in Physics at the University of California, San Diego under the supervision of Professor M. Brian Maple. Following his doctoral work, he held a postdoctoral position at UC San Diego and was subsequently awarded a Director's Funded Postdoctoral Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory (2011–2014) working with Dr. Eric Bauer. Dr. Baumbach joined Florida State University and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab) in 2014, serving as Research Faculty and Associate Research Professor in the Department of Physics. In 2024, he joined the faculty of the Department of Physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, as an Associate Professor. Baumbach's research centers on the discovery, synthesis, and characterization of strongly correlated electron systems and quantum materials based on transition metal, lanthanide, and actinide elements.