Anton Burkov

Dr. Burkov is a condensed matter theorist, interested in the physics of materials with nontrivial electronic structure topology and in the observable effects of electron-electron interactions in condensed matter systems. Both electronic structure topology and electron-electron interactions may lead to macroscopic quantum phenomena, in which quantum mechanics manifests on macroscopic scales due to topology- or interaction-induced quantum coherence. Sometimes the two work in unison, as in fractional quantum Hall systems, in which case particularly interesting and unexpected phenomena result.

• Quantum Materials

• Condensed Matter

• Quantum Science

• Quantum Electronics

• Quantum Sensors

• Strongly correlated many-particle physics

• Spintronics

• Topological insulators

• Weyl semimetals

Dr. Burkov's research program at UW has been focused in two distinct directions: strong-correlation and nonequilibrium phenomena in cold atomic gases; and topologically-ordered states of matter, including the recently discovered time-reversal invariant topological insulators.

The recent theoretical and experimental discovery of a new solid state of matter, Topological Insulator (TI), is the most exciting event in Condensed Matter Physics in the last two decades. It was ranked by the Science Magazine as one of the top ten breakthroughs in all sciences in the year 2007. His group’s research is increasingly focused in this rapidly developing new area and Burkov is currently the only UW faculty member, actively working in this field.

Recent invited talks include:

• Disordered Weyl semimetal as an array of coupled Hubbard chains, CAP Congress, University of Saskatchewan, June 9, 2025.

• Disordered Weyl semimetal as an array of coupled Hubbard chains, Flat Bands, Strong Correlations and Heavy Fermions, Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, April 1, 2025.

• 2002 PhD Condensed Matter Theory, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.A.

• 1999 MSc Physics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, U.S.A.

• 1996 Diploma Solid State Physics, Saint-Petersburg State Technical University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia

• 2023, Fellow, American Physical Society

• 2019, APS Outstanding Referee

• 2017, 2020 Outstanding Performance Award, University of Waterloo

• 2005, Caltech Postdoctoral Prize Fellowship in Theoretical Physics, California Institute of Technology

• 2016-2020, Associate Graduate Officer, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo

• 2018-present, Associate Editor, NPJ Quantum Materials

• 2013-present American Physical Society, Member

• 2013-2017 NSF National High Magnetic Field Laboratory Renewal, Member of the review panel

• Associate Faculty, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

• PHYS 335 - Condensed Matter Physics
  • Taught in 2025
• PHYS 364 - Mathematical Physics 1
  • Taught in 2021, 2022, 2023
• PHYS 435 - Current Topics in Condensed Matter Physics
  • Taught in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2025
• PHYS 704 - Statistical Physics 1
  • Taught in 2022, 2023
• PHYS 739 - Quantum Many Body Physics
  • Taught in 2020

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• A.A. Burkov, Chiral charge conservation and ballistic magnetotransport in a disordered Weyl semimetal, arXiv:2509.25330.

• Lei Gioia, A.A. Burkov, and T.L. Hughes, No-go theorem for single time-reversal invariant symmetry-protected Dirac fermions in 3+1d, arXiv:2508.19329.

• Jinmin Yi and A.A. Burkov, Disordered Weyl semimetal as an array of coupled Hubbard chains, Phys. Rev. B 111, 165114 (2025).

• Jinmin Yi and A.A. Burkov, Absence of localization in Weyl semimetals, Phys. Rev. B 109, 195152 (2024).

• M. Smith, V.L. Quito, A.A. Burkov, P.P. Orth, and I. Martin, Theory for Cd3As2 films in the presence of magnetic fields, Phys. Rev. B 109, 155136 (2024).

• A.A. Burkov, Michael Smith, Alexander Hickey, and Ivar Martin, Current-Induced Spin Accumulation and Magnetoresistance in Chiral Semimetals, Phys. Rev. B 108, 205115 (2023).

• Jinmin Yi, Xuzhe Ying, Lei Gioia, and A.A. Burkov, Topological order in interacting semimet- als, Phys. Rev. B 107, 115147 (2023).

• T. Serwatka, R.G. Melko, A.A. Burkov, and P.-N. Roy, Quantum Phase Transition in a One-Dimensional Water Chain, Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 026201 (2023) (Editor’s Suggestion, Featured in Physics).

• Xuzhe Ying, A.A. Burkov, and Chong Wang, Dynamical Effects from Anomaly: Modified Electrodynamics in Weyl Semimetals, Phys. Rev. B 107, 035131 (2023).

• A.A. Burkov, Topological properties of Dirac and Weyl semimetals, arXiv:2205.09866, chapter for Encyclopedia of Condensed Matter Physics, 2nd edition (Elsevier).