Physicists predict previously unseen phenomena in exotic materials

Monday, June 6, 2016 - 10:00 in Physics & Chemistry

Discovered just five years ago, topological semimetals are materials with unusual physical properties that could make them useful for future electronics. In the latest issue of Nature Physics, MIT researchers report a new theoretical characterization of topological semimetals’ electrical properties that accurately describes all known topological semimetals and predicts several new ones. Guided by their model, the researchers also describe the chemical formula and crystal structure of a new topological semimetal that, they reason, should exhibit electrical characteristics never seen before. “Generally, the properties of a material are sensitive to many external perturbations,” says Liang Fu, an assistant professor of physics at MIT and senior author on the new paper. “What’s special about these topological materials is they have some very robust properties that are insensitive to these perturbations. That’s attractive because it makes theory very powerful in predicting materials, which is rare in condensed-matter physics. Here, we know how to distill or...

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