Crystalline symmetries and topological phases: physics beyond the edge

Date

Jan 30, 2017

Time

10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Speaker

Robert-Jan Slager

Affiliation

MPI PKS Dresden

Language

en

Main Topic

Materialien

Other Topics

Materialien

Host

Dr. T. Oka

Description

In this talk I will give an overview of some new and experimentally relevant ideas that we have explored in the context of topological band structures. Such symmetry protected topological phases have attracted prominent research attention in the past few decades, resulting in a flurry of theoretical proposals that have been signified with experimental realizations in the laboratory. These exciting effects, ranging from illustrious majorana quasiparticles to exotic anomalies, in fact all depend on the presence of edge states, being the signature of such topological order. However, there is an abundance of new physics to be explored when the necessarily present bulk crystal symmetries are taken into account. I will make this concrete by presenting new classification tools to calculate all different topological phases for any space group in a highly simple manner, matching rather involved mathematical evaluations from a simple combinatorial point of view. Subsequently, I will show that the essentials of these ideas are directly relevant in the context of topological insulators and illustrate new physical consequences by considering the effect of defects. Finally, I will try to further stipulate the timely aspects of this pursuit in the light of recent experimental developments.

Links

• MPI CPfS

Last modified: Jan 30, 2017, 9:04:50 AM