A team at Peking University in China has achieved a groundbreaking feat: the first observation of non-reciprocal Coulomb drag in Chern insulators. Published in Nature Communications, this discovery unlocks new possibilities for understanding and controlling quantum states in advanced materials.
Coulomb drag, where the movement of charge in one conductor induces voltage in another nearby, has been observed in a novel way. The team's experiment revealed that the drag effect is not the same in both directions, a phenomenon called non-reciprocality. This asymmetry opens doors for creating new electronic functionalities like rectification and isolation, crucial for quantum circuits.
The implications extend to topological quantum computing. The non-contact detection method offers a sensitive way to probe quantum states relevant to qubit operations. This could lead to innovative device architectures that use magnetization dynamics for low-power, chiral electronic components, revolutionizing spintronic circuits.