Kenta Kuroda honored with “Academic Lecture Encouragement Prize”

At the 36th academic lecture sponsored by the Japan Surface Science Association (SSSJ) held at the Nagoya International Conference Hall on November 29th in 2016, Kuroda gave an excellent general presentation on “Ultrafast dynamics of Dirac surface states in topological insulators” which is expected to make a significant contribution to the development of surface science.

Topological insulators are insulators in which only the outermost surface reveals a metallic state. As surface electrons are crucial in shaping the material functions, understanding details of the mechanics and processes at work has drawn worldwide attention. Kuroda and colleagues were the first to successfully apply short laser pulses and time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy in the mid-infrared region in their investigations. As the researchers analyzed the photo excitation of Dirac surface-electrons generated in topological insulators at femtosecond resolution, they were able to show a direct optical transition of the Dirac surface condition in response to the mid-infrared excitation with a resulting spin-polarization of the surface current. The SSSJ sees this discovery as an important step to achieving optical spin control of electrons solely by the means of light.

The award is granted to promising young researchers under the age of 32 years and the presentation ceremony took place at the Surface Science Society of Japan’s regular meeting on May 20th, 2017.

The underlying research work was performed in close collaboration with colleagues in Japan and from SFB-project B6 (Höfer) during Dr. Kuroda’s research stay as a JSPS fellow and guest scientist of SFB 1083 at the Philipps-Universität Marburg in 2014 and 2015.