They are “strange” materials, insulators on the inside and conductors on the surface. They also have properties that make them excellent candidates for the development of spintronics (”spin-based electronics”) and, more in general, quantum computing. However, they are also elusive, as their properties are extremely difficult to observe. Now a SISSA study, published in Physical Review Letters, proposes a new family of materials whose topological state can be directly observed experimentally, thus simplifying things for researchers. The research was carried out with investigators from the Universities of Innsbruck in Austria and Würzburg in Germany, the latter especially important as these extraordinary materials were discovered in Würzburg in 2007.
“What interests us of topological insulators is not so much that their being insulators but that they exhibit conducting states on their surface” explains SISSA researcher Massimo Capone. “This features makes them unique, as none of the other insulating or conducting materials exhibits this dichotomy. Unfortunately, the characteristics that describe these materials are very subtle, such that they are truly difficult to identify and study.” The latest paper by Capone and co-‐workers published in Physical Review Letters explains how such characteristics could be found in materials with more evident properties, thus simplifying research in this field and opening up new possibilities.
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