Negative refraction of Weyl phonons at twin quartz interfaces

TL;DR

This study reveals that twinning and chirality in $ ext{α}$-quartz influence phonon topological properties, enabling negative refraction at certain twin interfaces due to Weyl phonons and their associated surface states.

Contribution

It demonstrates how twinning and chirality affect Weyl phonons and surface states in $ ext{α}$-quartz$, showing the possibility of negative refraction at specific twin interfaces.

Findings

Weyl nodal point charges flip between enantiomorphs.

Dispersion is identical along high-symmetry lines but differs at generic momenta.

Negative refraction occurs at interfaces between certain twin structures.

Abstract

In nature, $\alpha$-quartz crystals frequently form contact twins - two adjacent crystals with the same chemical structure but different crystallographic orientation, sharing a common lattice plane. As $\alpha$-quartz crystallises in a chiral space group, such twinning can occur between enantiomorphs with the same handedness or with opposite handedness. Here, we use first-principle methods to investigate the effect of twinning and chirality on the bulk and surface phonon spectra, as well as on the topological properties of phonons in $\alpha$-quartz. We demonstrate that, even though the dispersion appears identical for all twins along all high-symmetry lines and at all high-symmetry points in the Brillouin zone, the dispersions can be distinct at generic momenta for some twin structures. Furthermore, when the twinning occurs between different enantiomorphs, the charges of all Weyl nodal points flip, which leads to mirror symmetric isofrequency contours of the surface arcs. We show that this allows negative refraction to occur at interfaces between certain twins of $\alpha$-quartz.