Topological insulators
Aislantes topológicos
- Date
- 2005-2008 · confidence high
- Place
- University of Würzburg, Germany / Princeton, United States
- Credited to
- Charles Kane; Eugene Mele; Shoucheng Zhang; Laurens Molenkamp; M. Zahid Hasan
- People
- 👤 Charles L. Kane1963–👤 Eugene Mele1950–👤 Laurens W. Molenkamp1956–👤 M. Zahid Hasan1971–👤 Shoucheng Zhang1963–2018
- Field
- Matter & energy
What was discovered
Materials that are insulating in their interior but have conducting surface states protected by the topology of their band structure, predicted by Kane and Mele (2005) and observed in HgTe wells (Molenkamp, 2007) and in Bi-Sb (Hasan, 2008). They open up the topological classification of phases of matter.
Microsoft's results on Majorana qubits (2018, 2025) remain controversial.
What it led to
- Topological matter (Weyl semimetals, topological superconductors)
- Search for Majorana fermions
- Topological quantum computing
- 2016 Nobel Prize for Thouless, Haldane and Kosterlitz
Built on
- Graphene2004
- Quantum Hall effect and its topological interpretation (TKNN, 1982)
- Spin-orbit coupling
Made possible
- Low-dissipation spintronics
- Topological qubits (in development)