Researchers at the, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering have created a novel instrument that can help reveal the origin of electronic states in engineered materials, paving the way for their use in future quantum technology applications.
“In our daily life, when we want to better understand a material — to understand its composition or if it’s hollow — we knock on it,” Yang said. “This is a similar approach at a microscopic level. Our new technique allows us to ‘knock and listen’ to layered materials, and it allowed us to show that one particular magnetic topological insulator works differently than theory predicts.
“It is essentially a movie in the femtosecond timescale,” Yang said. “And it allows us to tell which electrons are from which layer.”