Disorder induces topological Anderson insulator

Chemical Industry (Oct. 11) -- ta team of experimental physicists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have made the first observation of a specific type of topological insulator that’s induced by disorder. Professor Bryce Gadway and his graduate students Eric Meier and Alex An used atomic quantum simulation, an experimental technique employing finely tuned lasers and ultracold atoms about a billion times colder than room temperature, to mimic the physical properties of one-dimensional electronic wires with precisely tunable disorder. The system starts with trivial topology just outside the regime of a topological insulator; adding disorder nudges the system into the nontrivial topological phase.