Dr. Michał Papaj is a theoretical condensed matter physicist who is particularly interested in the properties of quantum materials, both from the fundamental perspective as well as for their prospective applications in the next-generation quantum technologies. A significant portion of his research is focused on superconductivity, in which field he works on understanding the nature of unconventional superconductors such as iron-based compounds.

However, he also studies the heterostructures of conventional superconductors with other materials that can lead to the emergence of Majorana zero modes and other fascinating phenomena. Among the large variety of further materials he examines are two-dimensional systems such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, including their van der Waals and moiré heterostructures, as well as topological insulators and Weyl semimetals. He is also interested in the interplay between strong correlations and topology, for example in the context of topological excitonic insulators.

In his investigations, he applies both analytical techniques that elucidate the physical mechanisms behind the studied phenomena and numerical techniques that allow to model realistic setups, enabling a direct comparison with the experimental data. Specific areas he contributed to are narrow-band plasmonics, novel topological transport phenomena, emergence of pair density modulation states, controlling the superconductor properties through using the supercurrent flow, nonlinear optical responses of quantum materials, and vortex core states in iron superconductors.