Determination of the quantized topological magneto-electric effect in topological insulators from Rayleigh scattering

Topological insulators (TIs) exhibit many exotic properties. In particular, a topological magneto-electric (TME) effect, quantized in units of the fine structure constant, exists in TIs. Here, we theoretically study the scattering properties of electromagnetic waves by TI circular cylinders particul...

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Autores principales: Ge, Lixin, Zhan, Tianrong, Han, Dezhuan, Liu, Xiaohan, Zi, Jian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2015
Materias:
Article
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4302310/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25609462
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep07948
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author Ge, Lixin
Zhan, Tianrong
Han, Dezhuan
Liu, Xiaohan
Zi, Jian
author_facet Ge, Lixin
Zhan, Tianrong
Han, Dezhuan
Liu, Xiaohan
Zi, Jian
author_sort Ge, Lixin
collection PubMed
description Topological insulators (TIs) exhibit many exotic properties. In particular, a topological magneto-electric (TME) effect, quantized in units of the fine structure constant, exists in TIs. Here, we theoretically study the scattering properties of electromagnetic waves by TI circular cylinders particularly in the Rayleigh scattering limit. Compared with ordinary dielectric cylinders, the scattering by TI cylinders shows many unusual features due to the TME effect. Two proposals are suggested to determine the TME effect of TIs simply by measuring the electric-field components of scattered waves in the far field at one or two scattering angles. Our results could also offer a way to measure the fine structure constant.
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spelling pubmed-43023102015-01-27 Determination of the quantized topological magneto-electric effect in topological insulators from Rayleigh scattering Ge, Lixin Zhan, Tianrong Han, Dezhuan Liu, Xiaohan Zi, Jian Sci Rep Article Topological insulators (TIs) exhibit many exotic properties. In particular, a topological magneto-electric (TME) effect, quantized in units of the fine structure constant, exists in TIs. Here, we theoretically study the scattering properties of electromagnetic waves by TI circular cylinders particularly in the Rayleigh scattering limit. Compared with ordinary dielectric cylinders, the scattering by TI cylinders shows many unusual features due to the TME effect. Two proposals are suggested to determine the TME effect of TIs simply by measuring the electric-field components of scattered waves in the far field at one or two scattering angles. Our results could also offer a way to measure the fine structure constant. Nature Publishing Group 2015-01-22 /pmc/articles/PMC4302310/ /pubmed/25609462 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep07948 Text en Copyright © 2015, Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder in order to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Ge, Lixin
Zhan, Tianrong
Han, Dezhuan
Liu, Xiaohan
Zi, Jian
Determination of the quantized topological magneto-electric effect in topological insulators from Rayleigh scattering
title Determination of the quantized topological magneto-electric effect in topological insulators from Rayleigh scattering
title_full Determination of the quantized topological magneto-electric effect in topological insulators from Rayleigh scattering
title_fullStr Determination of the quantized topological magneto-electric effect in topological insulators from Rayleigh scattering
title_full_unstemmed Determination of the quantized topological magneto-electric effect in topological insulators from Rayleigh scattering
title_short Determination of the quantized topological magneto-electric effect in topological insulators from Rayleigh scattering
title_sort determination of the quantized topological magneto-electric effect in topological insulators from rayleigh scattering
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4302310/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25609462
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep07948
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