Communications of the ACM
Scientists Find Asymmetry in Topological Insulators
Sketch of the orbital texture switch deduced from the experimental and theoretical matrix elements.
Credit: Nature Physics
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have found that a class of materials being targeted for the next generation of computers behaves asymmetrically at the sub-atomic level. The researchers say the materials act differently above and below the Dirac point, which refers to the point where two conical forms, one representing energy and the other representing momentum, come together at a point. The researchers found that the orbital and spin texture of topological insulators states switched exactly at the Dirac point.
The researchers say their work is a key step toward understanding the topological insulators that may be used in future quantum computers. NREL's Jun-Wei Luo says topological insulators currently are of great interest for their potential to use their exotic properties to transmit information on electron spins with virtually no expenditure of electricity. "We computed and measured the profile of the topological states and found that the orbital texture of topological states switches from tangential to radial across the Dirac point," says NREL's Xiuwen Zhang. The researchers also found that the phenomenon was shared by all topological insulators. They say topical insulators could form the building blocks of quantum computers that run on almost no electricity.
From National Renewable Energy Laboratory
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