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Solid-state physics

Electrons do the split

Nature volume 485, pages 46–47 (2012)Cite this article

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Interacting electrons that are confined to move in a one-dimensional structure do not simply jam together like cars in rush hour. Inelastic X-ray scattering shows that the electrons act as if they split into separate fractional entities. See Letter p.82

In physics, a phenomenon is often best explained by reducing it to its simplest version. For example, to understand the quantum-mechanical motion of non-interacting electrons in a crystalline solid, the case of a one-dimensional crystal lattice suffices to introduce the concept of electronic band structure, which describes the range of energies that the electrons may have in the solid. But when it comes to interacting electrons, this approach fails. Coulomb repulsion between any two electrons is much stronger in one-dimensional solids than in their higher-dimensional counterparts, and many-body effects emerge that lead to an apparent fractionalization of the electron1,2,3,4,5. With this fractionalization, the electron's spin and charge seem to form separate quasiparticles — spinons and holons, respectively — that move independently of each other and have different velocities. In a paper published on Nature's website today, Schlappa et al.6 describe an experiment that takes the idea of electronic fractionalization a step further by revealing that electrons can split into a third form of quasiparticle, the orbiton.Footnote 1

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Figure 1: Electron fractionalization in a one-dimensional structure.

Notes

  1. *This article and the paper under discussion6 were published online on 18 April 2012.

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  1. Ralph Claessen is at the Physikalisches Institut, Universität Würzburg, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany.,

    Ralph Claessen

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Correspondence to Ralph Claessen.

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Claessen, R. Electrons do the split. Nature 485, 46–47 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11038

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