MEAM Seminar: “Wave Engineering: From Geometry to Fragility”

The elastic properties of materials are determined by a few material constants such as the Young’s modulus. Using super-structures one can effectively change these “constants”. In this way we obtain functionalities such as wave-guiding, acoustic lensing or programmable failure. I will show how topological band theory, known from the description of electrons in solids, provides us with a powerful design-principle for such mechanical metamaterials. Moreover, mechanical metamaterials offer a powerful platform for the study of fundamentally new phenomena that are hard to observe in other arenas. Here, I will highlight the first measurement of a quadrupole topological insulator in a silicon based metamaterial, the implementation of an axial gauge field in an acoustic Weyl system and the measurements of fragile topology.