Thermodynamic, elastic, and electronic properties of substances with a chiral crystal structure: MnSi, FeSi, and CoSi

Transition metal silicides crystallizing in a B20 chiral structure whose space group $P2_{1}3$ does not contain an inversion center feature a number of remarkable properties that have been studied for many decades. We analyze investigations of MnSi, FeSi, and CoSi, the most studied materials of this class, which are a sequence of a magnetic metal, a semiconductor, and a semimetal. Each of these materials exhibits the influence of spatial symmetry on certain features of the electronic and phonon spectra, some of which have been discovered quite recently.