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TOPOLOGICAL EFFECTS

United in a monolayer

Nature Physics volume 14, pages 879–880 (2018)Cite this article

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Recent experiments demonstrate that effects arising from quantum geometrical phases and band structure topology can coexist in two-dimensional materials, and can be addressed via optoelectronic experiments.

An important aspect of modern condensed matter physics is the study of phenomena that cannot be explained by an energy band diagram, but which depend either on the local geometric phase of a quantum wavefunction or on the global topological properties of the underlying material. On the one hand, Sir Michael Berry established that a quantum system will acquire an additional geometrical phase when its Hamiltonian is driven through an adiabatic change1. This paves the way towards novel spin–orbit physics and spin selection rules2. On the other hand, many exotic phases of matter are governed by the global topological properties of the Hamiltonian, which are robust against such adiabatic changes3,4. Writing in Nature Physics, Su-Yang Xu and co-workers5 demonstrate that monolayers of the van der Waals layered material WTe2 constitute a platform that combines both a non-trivial global topological character and a non-trivial local Berry curvature of the quantum wavefunction5.

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Fig. 1: Circular photogalvanic effect in monolayers of WTe2.
Fig. 2: Crystal structure and Berry curvature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Walter Schottky Institut and the Physics Department, Technical University of Munich, München, Germany

    Alexander W. Holleitner & Paul B. Seifert

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  1. Alexander W. Holleitner
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  2. Paul B. Seifert
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Correspondence to Alexander W. Holleitner or Paul B. Seifert.

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Holleitner, A.W., Seifert, P.B. United in a monolayer. Nature Phys 14, 879–880 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0196-7

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