Scope
Creating artificial materials that manipulate the flow of electrons, photons, sound waves or mechanical energy is a prime focus of modern materials science. In the past few years, a new paradigm is emerging within this effort thanks to the application of ideas from topology – the mathematics describing properties that are unchanged by smooth deformations. Following an explosion of activity in the study of topological phases in hard condensed matter, this topological approach has recently made its way from the quantum realm of electrons to the classical world of light, sound, and mechanics. Common to all these new developments is the presence of robust edge modes states, not necessarily linear waves, that owe their existence to integer-valued quantities (topological invariants) characterizing the bulk interior of the system. This Winter Conference is bringing together the leading experimental and theoretical figures in the field to further this development.
