Speaker: Caitlin Kengle
Transition metal monosilicides (MSi, M = Fe, Co, Mn, Re, Ru) are naturally occurring materials, some of which have been found in mineral form in comet dust. In a condensed matter physics context, these materials form binary cubic crystals and have been proposed to host topological bulk and surface phonons. In this talk we will discuss the nature of these proposed topological “double-Weyl” phonons in MSi and review experimental confirmation of the bulk bands. We then will review techniques that could be used to measure the topological surface phonon states, discuss reasons for why they have not yet been observed in experiment, and propose an avenue to measure them experimentally.
