Summer Program
Emerging New Phases in Quantum Materials: The Disordered, the Strange and the Topological
May 31–June 28, 2026
Organizers:
Piers Coleman, Rutgers University
Kin Fai Mak, Max Planck Institute, Hamburg
Alex Thomson, University of California, Davis
Justin Wilson, Louisiana State University
Quantum materials—both in bulk and in two-dimensional heterostructures—have become an unparalleled platform to explore new phases of matter, from unconventional superconductivity and correlated insulators to fractional states stabilized by topology and disorder. Woven within these advances is a broader class of “strange matter” that defies conventional paradigms of metals, insulators, and superconductors, appearing in both 2D systems and bulk compounds. These include Planckian strange metals with linear resistivity, anomalous insulators with unexpected quantum oscillations, and re-entrant superconductors that revive at ultrahigh fields. This workshop will unite these sibling developments under one program, emphasizing how correlations, topology, and disorder conspire to produce exotic behavior across materials ranging from moiré graphene and transition-metal dichalcogenides to heavy fermion and cuprate compounds. By bringing together theorists and experimentalists from different communities, the goal is to identify common frameworks, sharpen open questions, and catalyze new approaches to understanding and controlling these novel phases of matter.
Summer Workshops
The summer program, running for 16 weeks from late-May to mid-September, emphasizes exciting open problems at the cutting edge. Two or three concurrent workshops, each with a specific focus selected for timeliness and the potential for breakthroughs and of two to five weeks in length, establish the main themes of each week, with twelve or thirteen different workshops each summer, balanced across fields including particle physics, string theory, astrophysics and hard and soft condensed matter physics, as well as emerging areas including biological physics, ultra-cold atom physics, quantum information, and physical mathematics. Additional researchers participate in small working groups or as individual researchers. This framework is designed to maximize informal interactions and free discussion within each area and to promote cross-fertilization between different areas via the common language of theoretical physics. Participation in the summer program of the Aspen Center for Physics is by application and subsequent invitation only. View past workshops.
