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Topological Wannier cycles induced by sub-unit-cell artificial gauge flux in a sonic crystal

Nature Materials volume 21, pages 430–437 (2022)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 04 March 2024

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Abstract

Gauge fields play a major role in understanding quantum effects. For example, gauge flux insertion into single unit cells is crucial towards detecting quantum phases and controlling quantum dynamics and classical waves. However, the potential of gauge fields in topological materials studies has not been fully exploited. Here, we experimentally demonstrate artificial gauge flux insertion into a single plaquette of a sonic crystal with a gauge phase ranging from 0 to 2π. We insert the gauge flux through a three-step process of dimensional extension, engineering a screw dislocation and dimensional reduction. Additionally, the single-plaquette gauge flux leads to cyclic spectral flows across multiple bandgaps that manifest as topological boundary states on the plaquette and emerge only when the flux-carrying plaquette encloses the Wannier centres. We termed this phenomenon as the topological Wannier cycle. This work paves the way towards sub-unit-cell gauge flux, enabling future studies on synthetic gauge fields and topological materials.

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Fig. 1: Artificial gauge flux insertion in a single plaquette in acoustic systems.
Fig. 2: Topological Wannier cycles: underlying principles.
Fig. 3: Topological Wannier cycles: acoustic model.
Fig. 4: Observation of topological Wannier cycles.
Fig. 5: Visualizing the TBSs and the artificial gauge flux.

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Data availability

All relevant data are presented in detail in the manuscript and the Supplementary Information. Additional information is available from the corresponding authors through reasonable request.

Code availability

We use the commercial software COMSOL Multiphysics to perform the acoustic wave simulations and eigenstate calculations based on finite-element methods. Reasonable requests to have the computation details can be addressed to the corresponding authors.

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Acknowledgements

Z.-K.L., B.J., Y.L., S.-Q.W. and J.-H.J. are supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 12125504 and 12074281), the Jiangsu Province Distinguished Professor Funding and the Key Lab of Advanced Optical Manufacturing Technologies of Jiangsu Province, Soochow University. J.-H.J. thanks Z.-D. Song for many helpful discussions. He also thanks Z. H. Hang for sharing his laboratory for part of the measurements, and the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, where a large part of the manuscript was finalized, for their hospitality. Y.W. and F.L. are supported by the Guangzhou Basic and Applied Research Foundation (no. 202102020349), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (grant no. 2020A1515010549) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant no. 2020M672615).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Zhi-Kang Lin, Ying Wu.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics, School of Physical Science and Technology and Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, China

    Zhi-Kang Lin, Bin Jiang, Yang Liu, Shi-Qiao Wu & Jian-Hua Jiang

  2. School of Physics and Optoelectronics, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

    Ying Wu

  3. Centre for Quantum Physics, Key Laboratory of Advanced Optoelectronic Quantum Architecture and Measurement (MOE), School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

    Feng Li

  4. Key Lab of Advanced Optical Manufacturing Technologies of Jiangsu Province and Key Lab of Modern Optical Technologies of Ministry of Education, Soochow University, Suzhou, China

    Jian-Hua Jiang

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Contributions

J.-H.J. initiated the project and guided the research. J.-H.J. and Z.-K.L. established the theory. Y.W., Z.-K.L., B.J. and Y.L. performed the numerical calculations and simulations. Y.W., Z.-K.L., S.-Q.W., J.-H.J. and F.L. designed and performed the experiments. All the authors contributed to the discussions of the results and the manuscript preparation. J.-H.J., Z.-K.L. and Y.W. wrote the manuscript and the Supplementary Information.

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Correspondence to Ying Wu, Feng Li or Jian-Hua Jiang.

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Nature Materials thanks Marc Serra-Garcia and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–22, Tables 1 and 2 and Discussion.

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Lin, ZK., Wu, Y., Jiang, B. et al. Topological Wannier cycles induced by sub-unit-cell artificial gauge flux in a sonic crystal. Nat. Mater. 21, 430–437 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-022-01200-w

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