This talk starts by reviewing the remarkable theoretical and experimental progress in topological materials over the past decade. Three-dimensional topological insulators realize a particular electromagnetic coupling known as “axion electrodynamics,” and understanding this leads to an improved understanding of magnetoelectricity in all materials. We then turn to how topological Weyl and Dirac semimetals can show unique electromagnetic responses; we argue that in linear response the main observable effect solves an old problem via the orbital moment of Bloch electrons, and how in nonlinear optics there should be a new quantized effect, which may just have been seen experimentally.

Joel Moore is Chern-Simons Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Senior Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research is in quantum condensed matter physics with connections to statistical physics and quantum information. Specific areas of research are topological phases of matter, including the prediction of three-dimensional topological insulators with L. Balents, and non-equilibrium quantum dynamics ranging from many-body localization to integrability. He completed his bachelor's degree in physics from Princeton in 1995, held a Fulbright visiting position at TIFR in 1996, and received his Ph.D. from MIT in 2001 with support from a Hertz Fellowship. After a year at Bell Labs he moved to Berkeley as an assistant professor and received tenure in 2007. Moore is currently a Simons Investigator (since 2013) and an elected Fellow and Member-at-Large of the American Physical Society. He is an elected General Member of the Aspen Center for Physics and chair of the science advisory board for the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UCSB, and became founding director of the DOE supported Center for Novel Pathways to Quantum Coherence in Materials in 2018.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Joel Moore (2019), "Topological Materials as Platforms for New Particles and Electromagnetic Responses," https://nanohub.org/resources/30710.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. Dirac
2. nanophotonics
3. nonlinear optics
4. quantum materials
5. topological materials and matter
6. Weyl semimetals