Thursday, February 3, 2011, 1:30 pm — Small seminar room, Bldg. 510
Since their characterization over 80 years ago, physicists have
believed that there is only one type of band insulator -- a filled
valence band below the Fermi energy with a gap to excitations in the
conduction band above the Fermi energy. In the past few years, it has
become clear that this is not the whole story: band insulators have
topological invariants that distinguish them from each other, and
phase transitions must separate insulators with different values of
these invariants. Insulators with non-trivial values of these
invariants have come to be known as "topological insulators." In this
talk I will give simple physical descriptions of these invariants,
discuss their implications, and examine the experiments that have
actually observed topological insulators. Application of these
topological ideas has more recently led to a similar classification of
topological superconductors and superfluids, some of which are well
known, and others of which have yet to be observed. Finally, I will
discuss further applications of topological invariants, as well as
current and future directions.
Hosted by: Robert Konik
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