Topological edge states in acoustic Kagome lattices

We demonstrate that an acoustic Kagome lattice formed by an array of interconnected resonant cavities exhibits a new class of topological states protected by C _3 symmetry, and it is characterised by a topological invariant in the form of a winding number in Pauli vector space. This acoustic topolog...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Xiang Ni, Maxim A Gorlach, Andrea Alu, Alexander B Khanikaev
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2017-01-01
Series:New Journal of Physics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/aa6996
Description
Summary:We demonstrate that an acoustic Kagome lattice formed by an array of interconnected resonant cavities exhibits a new class of topological states protected by C _3 symmetry, and it is characterised by a topological invariant in the form of a winding number in Pauli vector space. This acoustic topological metamaterial can be considered as the two-dimensional analogue of the Su–Schrieffer–Heeger model, exhibiting a topological transition when a detuning is introduced between the inter-cell and intra-cell hopping amplitudes. The topological transition caused by such detuning is accompanied by the opening of a complete topological band gap, which may host edge states. The edge states emerge on either truncated ends of the lattice terminated by a cladding layer or at the domain walls between topologically nontrivial and trivial domains. First-principles simulations based on full-wave finite element method are used to design the lattice and confirm our analytical predictions.
ISSN:1367-2630