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The birth of topological insulators

Nature volume 464, pages 194–198 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Certain insulators have exotic metallic states on their surfaces. These states are formed by topological effects that also render the electrons travelling on such surfaces insensitive to scattering by impurities. Such topological insulators may provide new routes to generating novel phases and particles, possibly finding uses in technological applications in spintronics and quantum computing.

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Figure 1: Metallic states are born when a surface unties 'knotted' electron wavefunctions.
Figure 2: Topological order in two dimensions.
Figure 3: Signatures of the exotic metallic surface states in topological insulators.

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Acknowledgements

I have benefited from conversations about topological insulators with L. Balents, B. A. Bernevig, A. Essin, M. Franz, D. Haldane, Z. Hasan, C. Kane, D.-H. Lee, A. Ludwig, L. Molenkamp, S. Ryu, D. Vanderbilt, A. Vishwanath, X.-G. Wen, C. Xu and S.-C. Zhang. My work on topological insulators is supported by the US National Science Foundation.

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  1. Department of Physics, 366 Le Conte #7300, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Joel E. Moore

  2. Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Joel E. Moore

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Moore, J. The birth of topological insulators. Nature 464, 194–198 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08916

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