Experimentalists looking for new topological insulators have conventionally relied on a laborious process that involves calculating the possible
energies of electrons in each material to predict its properties.
To observe ultrafast electron motions in space and time, one needs to measure the
position of electrons in the material with a precision of the order of 0.1 nm (0.1 nm = 10 - 10 m), roughly corresponding to the distance between neighboring atoms, and on a sub-100 fs time scale (1 fs = 10 - 15s).
«This is unambiguous smoking - gun evidence to confirm theoretical predictions for the
conduction of electrons in these materials,» said Purdue University doctoral student Yang Xu, lead author of a paper appearing this week in the journal Nature Physics.
While most magnetic materials are «collinear», meaning that the magnetic
orientations of the electrons in the materials are arranged either in the same or opposite directions — that is, what we think of as «north» or «south» — this was not the case for the affected nickelate.