Building shape inspires new material discovery »

Alex Slobozhanyuk (L) and Andrey Miroshnichenko with models of the material structures, in front of the Nishi building that inspired them. Image: Stuart Hay, ANU Physicists inspired by the radical shape of a Canberra building have created a new type of material which enables scientists to put a perfect bend in light. The creation of a so-called topological insulator could transform the tele industry's drive to build an improved computer chip using light. Leader of the team, Professor Yuri Kivshar from The Australian National University (ANU) said the revolutionary material might also be useful in microscopes, antenna design, and even quantum computers. "There has been a hunt for similar materials in photonics based on large complicated structures," said Professor Kivshar, who is the head of the Nonlinear Physics Centre in ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering. "Instead we used a simple, small-scale zigzag structure to create a prototype of these novel materials with amazing properties." The structure was inspired by the Nishi building near ANU, which consists of rows of offset zigzag walls. Topological insulators have been developed for electronics, and now the possibility of building an optical counterpart is attracting a lot of attention.