The Daily Bulletin Archive

Please join the Chemistry and Physics departments for the seminar "Experimental Realization of Topological Insulator and Beyond," presented by Madhab Neupane, assistant professor of physics at the University of Central Florida, on Thursday, February 13, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Science and Mathematics Complex 176.

Abstract
A three-dimensional (3-D) topological insulator (TI) is a crystalline solid, which is an insulator in the bulk but features spin-polarized Dirac electron states on its surface. In 2007, the first 3-D TI was discovered in a bismuth-based compound. The discovery of the first TI tremendously accelerated research into phases of matter characterized by nontrivial topological invariants. Not only did the 3-D TI itself attract great research interest, but it also inspired the prediction of a range of new topological phases of matter. The primary examples are the topological Kondo insulator, the topological 3-D Dirac, Weyl and nodal-line semimetals, the topological crystalline insulator, and the topological superconductor. Each of these phases was predicted to exhibit surface states with unique properties protected by a non-trivial topological invariant. In this talk, I will discuss the experimental realization of these new phases of topological quantum matter in real materials through momentum-, spin-, and time-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The unusual properties of the protected topological surface states can lead to future applications in spintronics and quantum computation.