Researchers detect elusive quantum property known as 'Berry's phase' in a semiconductor

In conducting materials, free electrons can move from one point to another, conveying their electrical charge to produce an electrical current. Electrons have another property, known as spin, that could be harnessed and manipulated in 'spintronic' circuits and has the potential to revolutionize the field of conventional electronics, leading to new functionalities and devices with enhanced performance.

Controlling electron spin states, however, is not as straightforward as controlling charge, making the development of practical spintronics a significant challenge. Quantum theory predicts that certain exotic energy states produced by the motion of electrons in solid matter could be used to control electron spin. Yet it is only recently that scientists have even been able to observe such exotic quantum energy states in the lab.

Hiroshi Murakawa and colleagues from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science, in collaboration with co-workers from the University of Tokyo and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in the United States, have for the first time experimentally detected an elusive quantum property known as Berry's phase in a semiconductor.