Topological insulators offer unmatched tolerance to defects and unprecedented transport capabilities. While much of the interest of scientific communities is in topological electronics and photonics, the project seeks to establish a new field of study in topological phononics. Our work focuses on a holey silicon-based topological insulator design, in which simple geometric control enables topologically protected in-plane elastic wave propagation up to GHz ranges with a submicron periodicity. Our design offers robustness against geometric errors and potential fabrication issues, and this will pave the way for developing future phononic circuits and open up new possibilities of controlling acoustic, elastic, and heat waves.
Related Publications:
Z. Yu, Z. Ren, and J. Lee, “Phononic topological insulators based on six-petal holey silicon structures,” Scientific Reports 9, 1805, 2019.