Claudia A. Felser
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids
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Primary Section: 33, Applied Physical Sciences Secondary Section: 13, Physics Membership Type:
International Member
(elected 2021)
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Biosketch
Claudia Felser studied chemistry and physics at the University of Cologne in Germany (diploma in solid state chemistry, 1989, doctorate in physical chemistry, 1994). Felser has been honored with numerous awards, among others the Alexander M. Cruickshank Lecturer Award of the Gordon Research Conference, a SUR-grant Award from IBM and the Tsungmin Tu Research Prize from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan, the highest academic honor granted to foreign researchers in Taiwan. In 2019, Claudia Felser was awarded the APS James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials together with Bernevig (Princeton) and Dai (Hongkong). She is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the IEEE magnetic society, and is a member of the Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences, the acatech, the German National Academy of Engineering. Moreover, Felser is an international member of both the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
Research Interests
Felser’s research interests are the design, synthesis, and physical characterization of new quantum materials with topological properties. One versatile class of materials in the focus of her research are Heusler compounds and related superstructures. New classes of topological quantum materials were identified by Felser and her team. These materials display a plethora of novel phenomena including topological surface states, hydrodynamic flow of electrons, quantum effects known in high energy physics as the chiral anomaly and in astrophysics as the axial gravitational anomaly, non-collinear spin structures, and a phason collected mode which mimics a dynamical axion. A hallmark of many of these new quantum properties that are derived from fundamental symmetries of the bulk is that they are topologically protected. Surprisingly, more than 35% of all known inorganic compounds belong to a non-trivial topological materials class. Several of these materials can be building blocks for future quantum technologies.
