optical and electronic excitations hybridize and flow together tagged posts

The novel topological insulator built in the Würzburg Institute of Physics: a controllable flow of hybrid optoelectronic particles (red) travels along its edges. (Picture: Karol Winkler)

For the first time, physicists have built a unique topological insulator in which optical and electronic excitations hybridize and flow together. Topological insulators are materials with very special properties. They conduct electricity or light particles on their surface or edges only but not on the inside. This unusual behaviour could eventually lead to technical innovations which is why topological insulators have been the subject of intense global research for several years.

Physicists of Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria, Germany, with colleagues from the Technion in Haifa, Is...