Ideal Weyl points and helicoid surface states in artificial photonic crystal structures

• DOI: 10.1126/science.aaq1221
• Publication Date: 2018-01-11T19:02:39Z
• Authors: Biao Yang; Qinghua Guo; Ben Tremain; Rongjuan Liu; Lauren E. Barr; Qinghui Yan; Wenlong Gao; Hongchao Liu; Yuanjiang Xiang; Jing Chen; Chen Fang; Alastair Hibbins; Ling Lu; Shuang Zhang
• Keywords: Helicoid; Saddle point

Weyl points are the crossings of linearly dispersing energy bands three-dimensional crystals, providing opportunity to explore a variety intriguing phenomena such as topologically protected surface states and chiral anomalies. However, lack an ideal system in which all exist at same separated from any other poses serious limitation further development physics potential applications. By experimentally characterizing microwave photonic crystal saddle-shaped metallic coils, we observed that related each through symmetry operations. Topological exhibiting helicoidal structure have also been demonstrated. Our provides platform for exploring systems developing possible topological devices.