Petr Stepanov

Biography

Petr Stepanov leads the Quantum Materials Nano-Optoelectronics Laboratory. His research explores emergent quantum phenomena in two-dimensional materials and moiré heterostructures, where electron interactions, topology, and quantum geometry give rise to exotic phases of matter. Stepanov has made key contributions to understanding quantum states in magic-angle graphene, including superconductivity, correlated insulators, orbital magnetism, and topological phases. His group develops cryogenic near-field optical microscopy and nanoscale photovoltage probes to directly image electronic correlations, quantum geometry, and collective quantum behavior at the nanoscale. In 2026, he received an NSF CAREER Award for his research on optical approaches to strongly correlated moiré quantum matter. His work has been published in Nature, Nature Physics, Nature Materials, Physical Review Letters, and PNAS. Before joining Notre Dame in 2023, Stepanov was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at ICFO in Barcelona. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from The Ohio State University and his earlier training in Applied Physics and Mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.