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Updated: May 4, 2026

Observation and Analysis of Blinking Surface-enhanced Raman Scattering
Published on: January 11, 2018
Detection of Berry's phase in a Bulk Rashba semiconductor
H Murakawa1, M S Bahramy, M Tokunaga
1RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (Center for Emergent Matter Science), Wako 351-0198, Japan.
Researchers detected a nontrivial Berry
Area of Science:
- Condensed matter physics
- Materials science
- Quantum mechanics
Background:
- Electron motion in solids influences topological properties.
- Berry's phase, a geometric quantum phase, arises from electronic wave functions.
- Experimental observation of bulk state Berry's phase is rare.
Purpose of the Study:
- To experimentally detect a nontrivial Berry's phase in a bulk material.
- To investigate the topological properties of the Rashba semiconductor BiTeI.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of the Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) effect.
- Utilizing the large Rashba splitting in BiTeI to separate Fermi surfaces.
Main Results:
- Detection of a nontrivial π Berry's phase in bulk BiTeI.
- Observed separation of SdH oscillations from spin-split Fermi surfaces.
- Systematic π-phase shift in SdH oscillations for both Fermi surfaces.
Conclusions:
- Experimental confirmation of a nontrivial π Berry's phase in Rashba systems.
- BiTeI serves as a model system for studying topological quantum phenomena.
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