Chiral Topological Phases in Designed Mechanical Networks
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fphy-07-00178.pdf
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948.35 KB
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Author(s)
Ronellenfitsch, Henrik Michael
Dunkel, Joern
Date Issued
November 2019
Journal
Frontiers in Physics
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Citation
Ronellenfitsch H and Dunkel J (2019)Chiral Topological Phases in DesignedMechanical Networks.Front. Phys. 7:178. © 2019 The Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Mass-spring networks (MSNs) have long been used as approximate descriptions of biological and engineered systems, from actomyosin networks to mechanical trusses. In the last decade, MSNs have re-attracted theoretical interest as models for phononic metamaterials with exotic properties such as negative Poisson's ratio, negative effective mass, or gapped vibrational spectra. A numerical advantage of MSNs is their tuneability, which allows the inverse design of materials with pre-specified bandgaps. Building on this fact, we demonstrate here that designed MSNs, when subjected to Coriolis forces, can host topologically protected chiral edge modes at predetermined frequencies, thus enabling robust unidirectional transmission of mechanical waves. Similar to other recently discovered topological materials, the topological phases of MSNs can be classified by a Chern invariant related to time-reversal symmetry breaking. Keyword: Mechanical networks; Topological matter; Chern insulator; Classical mechanics and quantum mechanics; Edge modes
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphy.2019.00178
