Collapsing energy bands to explore their geometric structure

The geometry and topology of electronic states in solids plays a central role in a wide range of modern condensed-matter systems including graphene or topological insulators. However, experimentally accessing this information has proven to be challenging, especially when the bands are not well-isolated from one another. As reported in last week's issue of Science, an international team of researchers has devised a straightforward method to probe the band geometry using ultracold atoms in an optical lattice. Their method, which combines the controlled steering of atoms through the energy bands with atom interferometry, is an important step in the endeavor to investigate geometric and topological phenomena in synthetic band structures.

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