- Transition-metal compounds with strong electronic correlations
- Materials with strong spin-orbit coupling
- Topological semimetals
- Materials with topological electronic structure and magnetism

- Infrared spectroscopy
- Infrared and optical microspectroscopy
- Raman spectroscopy
- Experiments under extreme conditions: high pressure, low temperature

- Carbon nanotubes, peapods, fullerides
- 2D materials

- Multiferroics
- Ferroelectrics

- Influence of interlayer interaction on the charge and lattice dynamics in layered transition-metal chalcogenides
- Optical spectroscopy study of the Dirac line-node semimetals WXY, with W=Zr, Hf, X=Si, Ge, Sn, and Y=S, Se, Te, at ambient and high pressure
- Characterization of pressure-induced phenomena in carbon nanostructures by optical spectroscopy
- Tuning the ground state of strongly interacting low-dimensional electron systems by pressure: the cuprate spin ladder compounds
- Photo-induced effects in functional oxides studied by time-resolved optical spectroscopy

- Characterization of exotic electronic and structural states of matter under extreme conditions: IR and THz spectroscopy under high and ultra-high pressures at variable temperatures
[Joint research project, see also: Article (German) about matter under extreme conditions in "Welt der Physik"]