Observation of topological properties of non-Hermitian crystal systems with diversified coupled resonators chains

Non-Hermiticity extends the topological phase beyond the given Hermitian structure. Whereas the phases of non-Hermitian topological systems derived from Hermitian components have been extensively explored, the topological properties of an acoustic crystal that occur purely due to non-Hermiticity require further investigation. In this letter, we describe the development of an acoustic crystal with an adjustable loss that is composed of a chain of one-dimensional, coupled acoustic resonators. Each unit cell can contain three or six resonators, which are equivalent to 3 x 3 or 6 x 6 non-Hermitian Hamiltonian matrices, respectively. The topological properties of the crystal were verified by calculating the defined topological invariant, and the states of the edge and interface of the acoustic crystal were obtained by using a practical model. We obtained the states of the edges and the interface for both odd and even numbers of resonators in each unit cell and found that the location of the inductive loss had an important effect on the topological properties. This results here can guide research on advanced wave control for sensing and communication applications.

Automated summary

The study presents the development of an acoustic crystal with adjustable loss, verifies its topological properties, and explores the impact of inductive loss on the topological characteristics.