Hopes ran high when the first representatives of a new class of materials – topological insulators – were discovered some 15 years ago. Researchers predicted that the unique electronic structure of these materials would give rise to special properties on their surface, such as energy-efficient information transmission, which could facilitate the development of novel electronic components in a wide range of applications.
But to date, these possibilities could not be readily modified and controlled in applications. Despite the greatest of efforts, technological exploitation has been a long time coming. This may be about to change thanks to the discovery made by a team headed by Christian Pfleiderer, professorship for the Topology of Correlated Systems at the Technical University of Munich.
The search for crossings
In atoms, electrons occupy the various atomic orbitals up to a maximum energy. Each orbital corresponds to a fixed energy level. In solids, the atomic orbitals overlap, and the energy levels depend on the direction of motion and the wavelength of the electrons. The energy levels for different directions of motion and wavelengths vary within a characteristic range referred to as an energy band.
While the energy levels of the orbitals in an atom increase in a specific order, in solids the order of the energy levels, which stem from different atomic orbitals, may also be reversed depending on the direction of motion and the wavelength of the electrons.
The...
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