The metal-insulator transition depends on the mass of the Dirac electrons
Monday, March 21, 2016 - 08:20
in Physics & Chemistry
Scientists from the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe, Japan, have used the powerful K computer, along with a number of other supercomputers, to perform a large-scale analysis of the behavior of electrons in a material transitioning from a metal to an insulator phase. Their analysis, just published in Physical Review X, confirmed that there is a direct movement between the two phases, and that the behavior is tied to the loss of mass of the electrons—called Dirac electrons—in the materials as they become correlated with one another.