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The study of quantum matter is rapidly advancing through the discovery of emergent phenomena arising from the interplay of topology, electronic correlations, and symmetry breaking. New material platforms—such as twisted van der Waals systems, kagome metals, and compensated magnets—have revealed unconventional phases including correlated insulators, nematicity, altermagnetism, and unconventional superconductivity. Together with major experimental and theoretical advances, these developments open new opportunities for understanding complex quantum states and for developing future spintronic and quantum technologies. This seminar brings together leading German and Spanish researchers to explore these emerging directions and foster new collaborations.

For videos of the talks and further information, please visit the workshop home page.

The interplay between electronic and lattice degrees of freedom in quantum materials gives rise to a wealth of novel phenomena, from unconventional superconductivity to complex magnetic and nematic orders. Strain tuning has proven to be a powerful tool to manipulate these states, providing access to quantum phases and instabilities that are otherwise challenging to realize. Recent developments have highlighted the role of altermagnetic states, nematic quantum liquids, and nonlinear electron-lattice interactions in strongly correlated systems.

This conference will bring together experimentalists and theorists to explore how strain can be used to probe and control electronic and structural properties in quantum materials. Discussions will focus on the tuning of competing charge and spin orders, mechanically responsive electronic states, and emergent collective dynamics. Particular attention will be given to novel experimental approaches that enable high-precision strain control and uncover hidden aspects of quantum correlations.

By gathering leading researchers in the field, the conference aims to advance our understanding of electronic-lattice interactions and their implications for future materials design and applications.

For videos of the talks and further information, please visit the workshop home page.

Ferrons and Magnons: friends or foes?

Ferromagnets/Ferroelectrics are materials in which magnetic/electric dipoles spontaneously align below an often high critical temperature. Applied magnetic/electric fields switch this order in devices such as MRAM/EPROM non-volatile memories. Magneto/electro-caloric cooling applications employ the entropy changes associated with the dipolar order. Both material classes are useful in electronics as inductors/capacitors.

“Magnonics” is a subfield of magnetism that studies spin waves, the excitations of the magnetic order that are quantized into “magnons”. A community that studies polarization waves or “ferrons” in ferroelectrics does not exist yet.
This interdisciplinary workshop brings together researchers actively interested in the excitations of the magnetic and ferroelectric orders, magnons and ferrons, respectively, motivated by recent seminal experimental results that both confirm and challenge existing theories of ferron excitations.

For videos of the talks and further information, please visit the workshop home page.

Young Research Leaders Group Workshop: Transport and transfer of angular momentum: magnons, chiral phonons and beyond

The manipulation of angular momentum (AM) has been a cornerstone of the field of spintronics. Where initial developments were focussed on electrically driven spin currents, in recent years the field of spintronics has been broadened to include a wide family of quasiparticles: magnons, orbitals, photons, and phonons. This diversity provides a broad and promising platform for investigating the mechanisms of AM transport and exchange, as well as realizing functional devices. In this workshop, we aim to connect these different fields, to develop new insights in how to effectively transport and transfer angular momentum.

This workshop will bring together experimental and theoretical perspectives to examine recent advances in the manipulation and detection of angular momentum. Through presentations and open discussion, we will explore emerging approaches, identify key challenges, and outline potential directions for future research.

For videos of the talks and further information, please visit the workshop home page.

Quantum materials and quantum information science

Quantum materials and quantum information science are rapidly growing frontiers of modern fundamental physics. In quantum materials, recent studies have uncovered a wide array of macroscopic quantum phases, including unconventional superconductivity, Wigner insulators, orbital magnetism and topological orders. These phases are manifestation of spontaneous quantum coherence and entanglement between many electrons in the solids. Meanwhile, quantum information science has witnessed remarkable breakthroughs in quantum computing and quantum sensing across various physical platforms. Despite their rapid progress, the two fields have largely developed independently, suggesting exciting opportunities for synergy. Can we use qubits as novel probes to measure long-range many-body quantum entanglement in solids? Can we harness the collective quantum coherence and entanglement of correlated phases to design new types of qubits or quantum sensors? By bringing together leading experts from both communities, this workshop aims to explore the interface between quantum materials and quantum information science, fostering transformative ideas to address some of the most pressing open questions in both fields.

For videos of the talks and further information, please visit the workshop home page.

Unconventional Superconductors and Magnets

Unconventional superconductors are materials that exhibit superconductivity beyond the framework of BCS or Migdal–Eliashberg theories, often characterized by novel broken symmetries in addition to the usual U(1) gauge symmetry breaking. A parallel development has recently emerged in magnetism with the discovery of altermagnets—materials with collinear but compensated magnetic order that defy classification as either conventional ferromagnets or antiferromagnets. Together, these phenomena highlight some of the most exciting frontiers in quantum materials research, offering both fundamental challenges and promising pathways toward future quantum technologies.

This workshop will bring together leading experimentalists and theorists to discuss the latest developments in unconventional superconductors and magnets across a broad range of materials platforms. Topics will span the synthesis and discovery of new superconducting and magnetic systems, strategies for designing, manipulating, and amplifying the desired orders, and the development of next-generation experimental probes and theoretical frameworks. By fostering open dialogue between communities, the workshop aims to identify unifying principles, sharpen key scientific questions and accelerate progress in understanding and controlling these remarkable states of matter.

For videos of the talks and further information, please visit the workshop home page.

Theory of Unconventional Magnetism: exploring altermagnets and beyond

This workshop focuses on the theory of emerging unconventional magnetic material classes such as altermagnets, p-wave magnets, and other complex spontaneous magnetic ordered phases with emergent properties. These magnetic phases beyond the conventional s-wave order magnetic paradigm bring new points of views that connect with many fundamental areas of physics and motivated the search for a practical path towards teramagnetic technology.

The concept of altermagnetism and unconventional magnetism beyond the s-wave paradigm has interesting analogies and connections with diverse problems in condensed matter physics, such as unconventional superconductivity, correlated electronic liquid-crystalline phases, multipolar magnetic order, spintronics, and topological phenomena.

The goal of this one-week workshop is to bring together scientists interested in the general problem of altermagnetism who have complementary expertise and experience on these related condensed-matter physics problems. While the workshop will host a few daily talks covering the latest results of this fast-moving field, the focus will be on discussions and direct interactions between the participants, to foster a collaborative environment that will help advance the field and open new research directions.

For videos of the talks and further information, please visit the workshop home page.

Chiral Phonons

Chiral phonons are an emerging field of research focusing on the angular momentum carried by circularly polarized lattice vibrations. While physical mechanisms arising from electronic spin and orbital angular momentum are ubiquitous in solid-state physics, the role of phonon angular momentum has long only been seen in serving as a dissipation channel for the electronic system. In recent years however, an increasing number of phenomena based on phonon angular momentum has been described, including phonon Hall, phonon Zeeman, phonon Barnett, and Einstein-de Haas, as well as phonon spin Seebeck effects. The microscopic origins of these effects have often been found to be universal, which indicates that phonon angular momentum is a quantity of interest in its own right and chiral phonons need to be studied in a holistic approach.

In this workshop, we aim to bring together experts from diverse fields working on phenomena arising from phonon chirality and angular momentum. These include light scattering phenomena in chiral materials, phonon topology, transport phenomena, phonomagnetism, chirality-induced spin selectivity, ultrafast dynamics, and achiral-chiral phase transitions. Discussing chiral phonon physics in an overarching setting will promote collaborations within the community and strengthen our research efforts for the fundamental understanding of angular momentum in solids and the utilization of chiral phonons in potential applications.

For videos of the talks and further information, please visit the workshop home page.

Young Research Leaders Group Workshop: Magnetism in van der Waals materials: current challenges and future directions

Van der Waals materials are a fruitful playground for developing new emergent physical phenomena from bulk down to the two-dimensional limit. Regarding spins, magnetism arises in these systems either naturally —i.e., in van der Waals magnets— or by design —that is, engineering proximity or twist effects in van der Waals heterostructures, even if the starting layers are not magnetic per se!—. Some fundamental properties underlying these magnetic layers are the spin-switching and spin-transport mechanisms, the magneto-elastic coupling or the emergence of topological spin textures (e.g., skyrmions) and topological effects (e.g., the anomalous spin Hall effect), just to mention a few. Understanding these basic properties is key to its integration into devices, impacting in areas like spintronics, magnonics, or opto-electronics.

A characteristic fingerprint of this field is multi-disciplinarity since several disciplines are strongly involved, including chemical growth, advanced physical characterization techniques at the nanoscale (magnetic imaging, magneto-transport measurements, optical characterization, mechanical testing, …), and theoretical modeling, among others. This workshop gathers young researchers working in these areas, offering a holistic vision of the field of magnetism in van der Waals materials, discussing its current challenges, and envisioning future directions.

Overall, we aim to realize new synergetic effects not only between van der Waals layers but, even more importantly, between young researchers, thus creating a forum for future collaborations and scientific exchange.

For videos of the talks and further information, please visit the workshop home page.

Quantum Functionalities of Nanomagnets

Although numerous solid-state platforms are being developed for quantum applications significant challenges remain with respect to control and scalability, making the development of new qubit technologies a foundational activity pursued intensely. An under-explored platform – nanomagnets – is rapidly demonstrating unique features that could further invigorate the advancement of quantum technologies. This workshop aims to discuss the quantum aspects of tailored magnetic platforms, whose main advantage lies in the high degree of control in manipulation, preparation, parameter tunability, and all-magnetic device integration. It will also discuss some of the recent demonstrations of quantum operations using magnets, the discovery of materials with direct relevance to quantum technology, and the development of sensors able to detect magnetic signals with quantum sensitivity. The event will present the state-of-the-art and opportunities for synergy between quantum technology and tailored spin structures, which holds exciting promise for the creation and preservation of quantum information by magnetic quantum states.

For videos of the talks and further information, please visit the workshop home page.