Infrared Investigations of Magnetic Kagome metals

Magnetic Kagome metals attract a lot of attention as materials that combine two extreme features in their electronic structure: Massless Dirac fermions with linear band dispersion and flat bands hosting massive localized electrons.
Topological nature of the former and strongly correlated nature of the latter lead to a multitude of exotic phenomena, including quantum anomalous Hall effect and novel states, such as axion insulators [1,2].

The crystal dynamics of these systems is the key for understanding the proposed exotic phenomena including topological properties, strong electronic correlations, and magnetism; along with the interplay of those. The aim of this Master project is to perform a systematic optical investigation on these topological systems. We aim to tune the structure gradually by external means such as chemical doping and external pressure. This will allow us to investigate the effect of underlying lattice structure on the observed magnetization and electronic properties.

[1] I.I.Mazin et al. Nature Communications 5, 4261 (2014)
[2] D.F. Liu et al. Science 365, 1282 (2019)
[3] L. Ye et al. Nature 555, 638 (2018)