Persuading light to mix it up with matter
Researchers at MIT have succeeded in producing and measuring a coupling of photons and electrons on the surface of an unusual type of material called a topological insulator. This type of coupling had been predicted by theorists, but never observed.The researchers suggest that this finding could lead to the creation of materials whose electronic properties could be “tuned” in real time simply by shining precise laser beams at them. The work “opens up a new avenue for optical manipulation of quantum states of matter,” says Nuh Gedik, the Lawrence C. (1944) and Sarah W. Biedenharn Associate Professor of Physics and senior author of a paper published this week in Science. Nuh Gedik Photo: Bryce Vickmark Gedik, postdoc Yihua Wang (now at Stanford University), and two other MIT researchers carried out the experiments using a technique Gedik’s lab has been developing for several years. Their method involves shooting...