Phonons as a platform for non-Abelian braiding and its manifestation in layered silicates
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Abstract
Topological phases of matter have revolutionised the fundamental
understanding of band theory and hold great promise for next-generation
technologies such as low-power electronics or quantum computers. Single-gap
topologies have been extensively explored, and a large number of materials have
been theoretically proposed and experimentally observed. These ideas have
recently been extended to multi-gap topologies with band nodes that carry
non-Abelian charges, characterised by invariants that arise by the momentum
space braiding of such nodes. However, the constraints placed by the
Fermi-Dirac distribution to electronic systems have so far prevented the
experimental observation of multi-gap topologies in real materials. Here, we
show that multi-gap topologies and the accompanying phase transitions driven by
braiding processes can be readily observed in the bosonic phonon spectra of
known monolayer silicates. The associated braiding process can be controlled by
means of an electric field and epitaxial strain, and involves, for the first
time, more than three bands. Finally, we propose that the band inversion
processes at the