Disorder, defects, and real-space topology
Topological phases are most revealing where translation symmetry breaks: at defects, boundaries, and through disorder. We study the real-space states and dynamical responses that survive imperfect crystals, and how local modes reorganize transport and screening.
Topological zero modes turn disorder into a controlled route to quantum-critical dynamics. Figure from Physical Review Letters 136, 136602 (2026).
Real-space topology beyond perfect crystals
Topology is usually introduced in momentum space, but experiments see surfaces, impurities, dislocations, and local charge. We build real-space descriptions of these structures: symmetry-enforced wavefunction zeros, defect-bound and ring states, disorder-driven delocalization, and the collective dynamics generated when protected modes overlap.
The goal is a direct bridge from topology to local observables—scanning probes, transport, polarization, and screening—and a sharp answer to which signatures remain robust once crystalline order is lost.
Selected papers
- Quantum Critical Dynamics Induced by Topological Zero Modes — Physical Review Letters 136, 136602 (2026).
- Ring States in Topological Materials — Newton (in press).
- Anderson critical metal phase in trivial states protected by average magnetic crystalline symmetry — Nature Communications 15, 3069 (2024).
- Delocalization Transition of Disordered Axion Insulator — Physical Review Letters 127, 016602 (2021).
- Partial lattice defects in higher-order topological insulators — Physical Review Letters 123, 266802 (2019).
- Helical Majorana surface states of strongly disordered topological superconductors — Physical Review B 91, 014202 (2015).
