Proprietà elettroniche di nuovi materiali a ridotta dimensionalità

Low dimensionality plays a central role both in condensed matter physics and technological advancement. Many of the outstanding physical properties of low-dimensional materials are the manifestation of their unique electronic structure, whose understanding represents a key challenge for the scientific community. My doctoral thesis consists in the study of certain classes of novel low dimensional systems, including graphene intercalation compounds, transition metal dichalcogenides and the interplay between topology and dimensionality in the topological insulator mercury telluride. I discuss the central ideas behind the observed physics, describing a wide class of electronic phenomena including superconductivity, topologically non trivial phases and charge-density wave phases by means of state of the art first principles techniques.