Assistant Professor Taylor Hughes is a recipient of the 2014 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research from the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Hughes is a condensed matter theorist whose research program addresses leading-edge questions on observable phenomena in condensed matter and quantum physics. He is focused on three primary areas of inquiry: topological phases of matter; characterization of quantum condensed matter systems through quantum-information entanglement techniques; and properties of materials with strong spin-orbit coupling.
Hughes also has a strong interest in related topics, including unconventional superconductivity and superfluidity, topological order, the quantum Hall effect, disordered electronic systems, and the connections between high-energy physics and condensed matter physics.
His fundamental research has long-term implications for quantum computing and understanding exotic phases of quantum matter.
“Taylor is a dynamic and highly productive theorist who has already made significant contributions to his field early in his career because of his selection of problems, deep theoretical insights, and outstanding mathematical skills,” remarks Department Head and Professor Dale Van Harlingen. “ In particular, he has been a great asset to our condensed matter physics program because he collaborates very actively with the experimentalists, including my group, to help us understand and interpret our results. We have every reason to expect many great things from him in the future.”
Hughes shares, “I am really honored to receive this award—with all of the outstanding young faculty that I have met at U. of I., I know the competition must have been fierce. This award imparts some confidence that my research program is making a recognizable impact and makes me excited to try to push even further.”
Hughes is co-author with B. Andrei Bernevig of Topological Insulators and Topological Superconductors, a graduate-level text published last year by Princeton University Press. It is the first comprehensive introduction to the subject and has been well received and highly praised by top experts in the field.
He is a recipient of the 2013 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He is a member of the Institute of Condensed Matter Theory and of the US Department of Energy’s Quantum Materials at the Nanoscale research effort headquartered at the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Hughes received his bachelor’s degrees in physics and mathematics from the University of Florida in 2003, graduating summa cum laude. He then worked for a year as a software engineer for the Department of Defense.
He went on to receive his doctoral degree from Stanford University in 2009, working under Shou-Cheng Zhang. Some of the work Hughes completed here contributed to what Science magazine named one of the top 10 breakthroughs among all scientific fields in 2007—namely the theoretical prediction by Bernevig, Hughes, and Zhang in 2006 that mercury telluride and cadmium telluride semiconductor heterostructures would exhibit a two-dimensional time-reversal symmetric topological insulator phase, a prediction that was experimentally confirmed shortly afterward.
Hughes completed a postdoctoral appointment at Physics Illinois and the Instititute for Condensed Matter Theory (2009-2011), working under Professor Eduardo Fradkin. During these two years he began developing methods to characterize states of matter using quantum entanglement, most notably, disordered fermionic systems and topological insulator/ordered systems. Additionally he began working on the theory of the topological visco-elastic response in topological insulators.
Hughes joined the faculty at Physics Illinois in 2011.
The award will be presented to Hughes at an Engineering Faculty Awards Ceremony on April 28, 2014, at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in Urbana.