Abnormal topological refraction into free medium at subwavelength scale in valley phononic crystal plates

In this work we propose a topological valley phononic crystal plate and we extensively investigate the refraction of valley modes into the surrounding homogeneous medium. This phononic crystal includes two sublattices of resonators (A and B) modeled by mass-spring systems. We show that two edge states confined at the AB/BA and BA/AB type domain walls exhibit different symmetries in physical space and energy peaks in the Fourier space. As a result, distinct refraction behaviors, especially through an armchair cut edge, are observed. On the other hand, the decay depth of these localized topological modes, which is found to be solely determined by the relative resonant strength between the scatterers, significantly affects the refraction patterns. More interestingly, the outgoing traveling wave through a zigzag interface becomes evanescent when operating at deep subwavelength scale. This is realized by tuning the average resonant strength. We show that the evanescent modes only exist along a particular type of outlet edge and that they can couple with both topological interface states. We also present a near-ideal monopole and a dipole emitter based on our phononic structure.

Automated summary

In this work, a topological valley phononic crystal plate is proposed and the refraction behavior of valley modes is investigated. Different symmetries and energy peaks are observed in boundary states fixed on different interfaces, affecting the refraction patterns. Emitting waves become evanescent at deep subwavelength scales, existing only along specific types of outlet edges.