Universal Mirror-Stacking Approach for Constructing Topological Bound States in the Continuum

Bound states in the continuum (BICs) are counterintuitive localized states with eigenvalues embedded in the continuum of extended states. Recently, nontrivial band topology is exploited to enrich the BIC physics, resulting in topological BICs (TBICs) with extraordinary robustness against perturbations or disorders. Here, we propose a simple but universal mirror-stacking approach to turn nontrivial bound states of any topological monolayer model into TBICs. Physically, the mirror-stacked bilayer Hamiltonian can be decoupled into two independent subspaces of opposite mirror parities, each of which directly inherits the energy spectrum information and band topology of the original monolayer. By tuning the interlayer couplings, the topological bound state of one subspace can move into and out of the continuum of the other subspace continuously without hybridization. As representative examples, we construct one-dimensional first-order and two-dimensional higher-order TBICs, and demonstrate them unambiguously by acoustic experiments. Our findings will expand the research implications of both topological materials and BICs.

Automated summary

We propose a simple but universal mirror-stacking approach to turn nontrivial bound states of any topological monolayer model into topological bound states with extraordinary robustness. By tuning the interlayer couplings, the topological bound state of one subspace can move into and out of the continuum of the other subspace continuously without hybridization. We construct one-dimensional first-order and two-dimensional higher-order topological bound states and demonstrate them unambiguously by acoustic experiments.