Topological insulators enter the fourth dimension – Physics World

Topological insulators enter the fourth dimension – Physics World

How circuits simulate hyperspace geometry

Physicists have created a virtual crystal with four spatial dimensions that acts as a topological insulator — a material that conducts electricity on only its outer boundary. To do so, the team wired up connections among electrical circuits to simulate those in a four-dimensional (4D) crystal. (Just as cubes have six square faces, hypercubes have eight cubic ‘faces’ — so when hypercubes are stacked in 4D, each one is in contact with eight neighbours.) A similar scheme could extend to even more dimensions of space, leading to the observation of new phenomena. “There are suggestions that some really cool things could happen in 5D and 6D,” says theoretical physicist Hannah Price. Exotic topological insulators could find applications in future quantum computers.

Physics World | 3 min readSource: Nature Communications paper