A mono-atomic orbital-based 1D topological crystalline insulator

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Liu, Gengming, Workman, Violet, Noh, Jiho, Ma, Yuhao, Hughes, Taylor L., Benalcazar, Wladimir A., Bahl, Gaurav
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2023
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author Liu, Gengming
Workman, Violet
Noh, Jiho
Ma, Yuhao
Hughes, Taylor L.
Benalcazar, Wladimir A.
Bahl, Gaurav
author_facet Liu, Gengming
Workman, Violet
Noh, Jiho
Ma, Yuhao
Hughes, Taylor L.
Benalcazar, Wladimir A.
Bahl, Gaurav
contents Topological crystalline insulators (TCIs) are classified by topological invariants defined with respect to the crystalline symmetries of their gapped bulk. The bulk-boundary correspondence then links the topological properties of the bulk to robust observables on the edges, e.g., the existence of robust edge modes or fractional charge. In one dimension, TCIs protected by reflection symmetry have been realized in a variety of systems where each unit cell has spatially distributed degrees of freedom (SDoF). However, these realizations of TCIs face practical challenges stemming from the sensitivity of the resulting edge modes to variations in edge termination and to the local breaking of the protective spatial symmetries by inhomogeneity. Here we demonstrate topologically protected edge states in a mono-atomic, orbital-based TCI that mitigates both of these issues. By collapsing all SDoF within the unit cell to a singular point in space, we eliminate the ambiguity in unit cell definition and hence remove a prominent source of boundary termination variability. The topological observables are also more tolerant to disorder in the orbital energies. To validate this concept, we experimentally realize a lattice of mechanical resonators where each resonator acts as an "atom" that harbors two key orbital degrees of freedom having opposite reflection parity. Our measurements of this system provide direct visualization of the $sp$-hybridization between orbital modes that leads to a non-trivial band inversion in the bulk. Furthermore, as the spatial width of the resonators is tuned, one can drive a transition between a topological and trivial phase. In the future we expect our approach can be extended to realize orbital-based obstructed atomic insulators and TCIs in higher dimensions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_10403
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A mono-atomic orbital-based 1D topological crystalline insulator
Liu, Gengming
Workman, Violet
Noh, Jiho
Ma, Yuhao
Hughes, Taylor L.
Benalcazar, Wladimir A.
Bahl, Gaurav
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Topological crystalline insulators (TCIs) are classified by topological invariants defined with respect to the crystalline symmetries of their gapped bulk. The bulk-boundary correspondence then links the topological properties of the bulk to robust observables on the edges, e.g., the existence of robust edge modes or fractional charge. In one dimension, TCIs protected by reflection symmetry have been realized in a variety of systems where each unit cell has spatially distributed degrees of freedom (SDoF). However, these realizations of TCIs face practical challenges stemming from the sensitivity of the resulting edge modes to variations in edge termination and to the local breaking of the protective spatial symmetries by inhomogeneity. Here we demonstrate topologically protected edge states in a mono-atomic, orbital-based TCI that mitigates both of these issues. By collapsing all SDoF within the unit cell to a singular point in space, we eliminate the ambiguity in unit cell definition and hence remove a prominent source of boundary termination variability. The topological observables are also more tolerant to disorder in the orbital energies. To validate this concept, we experimentally realize a lattice of mechanical resonators where each resonator acts as an "atom" that harbors two key orbital degrees of freedom having opposite reflection parity. Our measurements of this system provide direct visualization of the $sp$-hybridization between orbital modes that leads to a non-trivial band inversion in the bulk. Furthermore, as the spatial width of the resonators is tuned, one can drive a transition between a topological and trivial phase. In the future we expect our approach can be extended to realize orbital-based obstructed atomic insulators and TCIs in higher dimensions.
title A mono-atomic orbital-based 1D topological crystalline insulator
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.10403