{"id":231491,"date":"2026-02-17T01:18:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T07:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/using-light-to-probe-fractional-charges-in-a-fractional-chern-insulator"},"modified":"2026-02-17T01:18:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T07:18:49","slug":"using-light-to-probe-fractional-charges-in-a-fractional-chern-insulator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/using-light-to-probe-fractional-charges-in-a-fractional-chern-insulator","title":{"rendered":"Using light to probe fractional charges in a fractional Chern insulator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/using-light-to-probe-fractional-charges-in-a-fractional-chern-insulator2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In some quantum materials, which are materials governed by quantum mechanical effects, interactions between charged particles (i.e., electrons) can prompt the creation of quasiparticles called anyons, which carry only a fraction of an electron\u2019s charge (i.e., fractional charge) and fractional quantum statistics.<\/p>\n<p>A well-known phenomenon characterized by the emergence of anyons is the so-called fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE). This effect can emerge in two-dimensional (2D) electron gases under strong magnetic fields and is marked by quantum states in which electrons strongly interact with each other.<\/p>\n<p>Recent studies showed that a similar effect can also arise in the absence of magnetic fields, known as <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2024-02-electrons-fractions-graphene.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">fractional quantum anomalous Hall<\/a> (FQAH) effect, in quantum phases of matter fractional Chern insulators (FCIs). The FQAH effect was realized for the first time using bilayer twisted molybdenum ditelluride (tMoTe\u2082)\u2014a moir\u00e9 superlattice that has a characteristic lattice pattern and a slight twist angle between constituent layers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In some quantum materials, which are materials governed by quantum mechanical effects, interactions between charged particles (i.e., electrons) can prompt the creation of quasiparticles called anyons, which carry only a fraction of an electron\u2019s charge (i.e., fractional charge) and fractional quantum statistics. A well-known phenomenon characterized by the emergence of anyons is the so-called fractional [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}