Tailoring Topology in Real and Reciprocal Space in Oxides

With the now vast collection of materials hosting topological phases, an emerging goal is to provide design routes for their control with strain and fields. Oxides are an enticing class of materials to investigate on-demand topological phases since they already host a wealth of highly-tunable orders such as multiferroism and superconductivity. In this talk, I will discuss how conventional order parameters in oxides such as ferroelectric mode distortions and octahedral rotations can be used to tune non-trivial topology using first-principles calculations and model Hamiltonians. I will also describe our recent work in ‘magnetoelectric’ skyrmions -- nontrivial vortex textures in real space -- and how ferroelectric distortions in such systems control the resulting spin properties.