A two-dimensional quadrupole topological insulator on a square lattice is a typical example of a higher-order topological insulator. It hosts an edge state localized near each of its $90^{\circ}$ corners at an energy $E$ inside the band gap, where $E$ is set equal to zero for simplicity. Although the appearance of an edge state has been shown in simple systems with only $90^{\circ}$ corners, it is uncertain whether a similar localized state can appear at $E = 0$ near a complicated edge consisting of multiple $90^{\circ}$ and $270^{\circ}$ corners. Here, we present a numerical method to determine the wavefunction of a zero-energy state localized near an arbitrary edge. This method enables us to show that one localized state appears at $E = 0$ if the edge consists of an odd number of corners. In contrast, the energy of localized states inevitably deviates from $E = 0$ if the edge includes an even number of corners.
A quadrupole topological insulator, being one higher-order topological insulator with nontrivial quadrupole quantization, has been intensely investigated very recently. However, the tight-binding model proposed for such emergent topological insulators demands both positive and negative hopping coefficients, which imposes an obstacle in practical realizations. Here we introduce a feasible approach to design the sign of hopping in acoustics, and construct the first acoustic quadrupole topological insulator that stringently emulates the tight-binding model. The inherent hierarchy quadrupole topol…
Quadrupole topological insulators are a new class of topological insulators with quantized quadrupole moments, which support protected gapless corner states. The experimental demonstrations of quadrupole-topological insulators were reported in a series of artificial materials, such as photonic crystals, acoustic crystals, and electrical circuits. In all these cases, the underlying structures have discrete translational symmetry and thus are periodic. Here we experimentally realize two-dimensional aperiodic-quasicrystalline quadrupole-topological insulators by constructing them in electrical ci…
We show that topological defects in quadrupole insulators do not host quantized fractional charges, contrary to what their Wannier representation indicates. In particular, we test the charge quantization hypothesis based on the Wannier representation of a parametric defect and a disclination. Against the expectations, we find that the local charge density decays as $\sim 1/r^2$ with distance, leading to a diverging defect charge. We identify sublattice symmetry and not higher order topology as the origin of the previously reported charge quantization.
We investigate disorder-driven topological phase transitions in quantized electric quadrupole insulators. We show that chiral symmetry can protect the quantization of the quadrupole moment $q_{xy}$, such that the higher-order topological invariant is well-defined even when disorder has broken all crystalline symmetries. Moreover, nonvanishing $q_{xy}$ and consequent corner modes can be induced from a trivial insulating phase by disorder that preserves chiral symmetry. The critical points of such topological phase transitions are marked by the occurrence of extended boundary states even in the …
The dynamics of two-dimensional (2D) topological quadrupole insulator (TQI) and Chern insulator (CI) after the real-space configuration is transformed from a cylinder or Mobius strip to open boundary condition (OBC) and vice versa is analyzed. Similar dynamics of both models are observed, but the quadrupole corner states of the TQI makes the signatures more prominent. After the systems transform from a cylinder or Mobius strip to OBC, the occupation of the corner state of the TQI and the edge state of the CI exhibits steady-state behavior. The steady-state values depend on the ramping rate of …
Quantized bulk quadrupole moment has unveiled a nontrivial boundary state, exhibiting lower-dimensional topological edge states and simultaneously hosting the in-gap corner modes of zero dimension. All state-of-the-art strategies for topological thermal metamaterials have so far failed to observe such higher-order hierarchical features, since the absence of quantized bulk quadrupole moments in thermal diffusion fundamentally forbids the possible expansions of band topology, unlike its photonic counterpart. Here, we report a recipe of creating quantized bulk quadrupole moments in diffusion, and…
The modern theory of electric polarization has recently been extended to higher multipole moments, such as quadrupole and octupole moments. The higher electric multipole insulators are essentially topological crystalline phases protected by underlying crystalline symmetries. Henceforth, it is natural to ask what are the consequences of symmetry breaking in these higher multipole insulators. In this work, we investigate topological phases and the consequences of symmetry breaking in generalized electric quadrupole insulators. Explicitly, we generalize the Benalcazar-Bernevig-Hughes model by add…
Quadrupole topological insulator is a symmetry-protected higher-order topological phase with intriguing topology of Wannier bands, which, however, has not yet been realized in plasmonic metamaterials. Here, we propose a lattice of plasmon-polaritonic nanocavities which can realize quadrupole topological insulators by exploiting the geometry-dependent sign-reversal of the couplings between the daisy-like nanocavities. The designed system exhibits various topological and trivial phases as characterized by the nested Wannier bands and the topological quadrupole moment which can be controlled by t…
High-order topological insulators are a recent development extending the topological theory of charge polarization to higher multipole moments. Since their theoretical proposal, several experimental realizations of high-order topological insulators have been reported. However, high order topological transitions have not been observed. In this letter, we report on the observation of a high-order topological transition in a quadrupole topological insulator implemented in an LC circuit with nonlinear couplings. This system presents the ability to confine electromagnetic energy in its corner state…
We demonstrate that HOTIs with the quantization of the quadrupole moments can be realized in the two-dimensional elastic phononic crystals (PnCs). Both one-dimensional (1D) topological edge states and zero-dimensional (0D) topological corner states are visualized and can be transformed each other by tuning the crystalline symmetry in a hierarchical structure. The systematic band structure calculations indicate that elastic wave energy in the hierarchical structure can be localized with remarkable robustness, which is very promising for new generations of integrated solid-state phononic circuit…
Modern theory of electric polarization is formulated by the Berry phase, which, when quantized, leads to topological phases of matter. Such a formulation has recently been extended to higher electric multipole moments, through the discovery of the so-called quadupole topological insulator. It has been established by a classical electromagnetic theory that in a two-dimensional material the quantized properties for the quadupole topological insulator should satisfy a basic relation. Here we discover a new type of quadrupole topological insulator (dubbed type-II) that violates this relation due t…
When the crystalline symmetries that protect a higher-order topological phase are not preserved at the boundaries of the sample, gapless hinge modes or in-gap corner states cannot be stabilized. Therefore, careful engineering of the sample termination is required. Similarly, magnetic textures, whose quantum fluctuations determine the supported magnonic excitations, tend to relax to new configurations that may also break crystalline symmetries when boundaries are introduced. Here we uncover that antiskyrmion crystals provide an experimentally accessible platform to realize a magnonic topologica…
Higher-order topological insulators have been introduced in the precursory Benalcazar-Bernevig-Hughes quadrupole model, but no electronic compound has been proposed to be a quadrupole topological insulator (QTI) yet. In this work, we predict that Ta$_2M_3$Te$_5$ ($M=$ Pd, Ni) monolayers can be 2D QTIs with second-order topology due to the double-band inversion. A time-reversal-invariant system with two mirror reflections (M$_x$ and M$_y$) can be classified by Stiefel-Whitney numbers ($w_1, w_2$) due to the combined symmetry $TC_{2z}$. Using the Wilson loop method, we compute $w_1=0$ and $w_2=1…
The quadrupole topological insulator (QTI) has attracted intense studies as a prototype of symmetry-protected higher-order topological phases of matter with a quantized quadrupole moment. The realization of QTIs has been reported in various static settings with periodic structures. Here, we theoretically investigate topological phase transitions and establish the QTI phase in a periodically driven system with disorder. In the clean limit, the Floquet QTI phase emerges from a topologically trivial band structure driven by elliptically polarized irradiation. More strikingly, starting from a pure…
The modern theory of charge polarization in solids is based on a generalization of Berry's phase. Its possible quantization lies at the heart of our understanding of all systems with topological band structures that were discovered over the last decades. While based on the concept of the "charge" polarization, the same theory can be used as an elegant tool to characterize the Bloch bands of neutral bosonic systems such as photonic or phononic crystals. Recently, the theory of this quantized polarization was extended from the dipole- to higher multipole-moments. In particular, a two-dimensional…
The modern theory of electric polarization in crystals associates the dipole moment of an insulator with a Berry phase of its electronic ground state [1, 2]. This concept constituted a breakthrough that not only solved the long-standing puzzle of how to calculate dipole moments in crystals, but also lies at the core of the theory of topological band structures in insulators and superconductors, including the quantum anomalous Hall insulator [3, 4] and the quantum spin Hall insulator [5-7], as well as quantized adiabatic pumping processes [8-10]. A recent theoretical proposal extended the Berry…
The chiral hinge modes are the key feature of a second order topological insulator in three dimensions. Here we propose a quadrupole index in combination of a slab Chern number in the bulk to characterize the flowing pattern of chiral hinge modes along the hinges at the intersection of the surfaces of a sample. We further utilize the topological field theory to demonstrate the correspondent connection of the chiral hinge modes to the quadrupole index and the slab Chern number, and present a picture of three-dimensional quantum anomalous Hall effect as a consequence of chiral hinge modes. The t…
The Berry phase associated with energy bands in crystals can lead to quantized quantities, such as the quantization of electric dipole polarization in an insulator, known as a one-dimensional (1D) topological insulator (TI) phase. Recent theories have generalized such quantization from dipole to higher multipole moments, giving rise to the discovery of multipole TIs, which exhibit a cascade hierarchy of multipole topology at boundaries of boundaries: A quantized octupole moment in the three-dimensional (3D) bulk can induce quantized quadrupole moments on its two-dimensional (2D) surfaces, whic…
A second-order topological insulator on a two-dimensional square lattice hosts zero-dimensional states inside a band gap. They are localized near $90^{\circ}$ and $270^{\circ}$ corners constituting an edge of the system. When the edge is in a staircase form consisting of these two corners, two families of edge states (i.e., one-dimensional states localized near the edge) appear as a result of the hybridization of zero-dimensional states. We identify symmetry that makes them gapless. We also show that a pair of nontrivial winding numbers associated with this symmetry guarantee a gapless spectru…
Topological electric quadrupole is a recently proposed concept that extends the theory of electric polarization of crystals to higher orders. Such a quadrupole phase supports topological states localized on both edges and corners. In this work, we show that in a quadrupole phase of honeycomb lattice, topological helical edge states and pseudo-spin-polarized corner states appear by making use of a pseudo-spin degree of freedom related to point group symmetry. Furthermore, we argue that a general condition for emergence of helical edge states in a (pseudo-)spinful quadrupole phase is mirror or t…
We study disorder effects in a two-dimensional system with chiral symmetry and find that disorder can induce a quadrupole topological insulating phase (a higher-order topological phase with quadrupole moments) from a topologically trivial phase. Their topological properties manifest in a topological invariant defined based on effective boundary Hamiltonians, the quadrupole moment, and zero-energy corner modes. We find gapped and gapless topological phases and a Griffiths regime. In the gapless topological phase, all the states are localized, while in the Griffiths regime, the states at zero en…
We study the quantization of the excess charge on $N$ localized (ultra-screened) impurities in $d$-dimensional crystalline insulating systems. Solving Dyson's equation, we demonstrate that such charges are topological, by expressing them as winding numbers of appropriate functionals of bulk position space Green's functions. We discuss the ties of our topological invariant with the nearsightedness principle of W. Kohn, stating that the electronic charge density at fixed chemical potential depends on the external field only locally, meaning that localized perturbations by external fields may onl…
We extend the theory of dipole moments in crystalline insulators to higher multipole moments. In this paper, we expand in great detail the theory presented in Ref. 1, and extend it to cover associated topological pumping phenomena, and a novel class of 3D insulator with chiral hinge states. In quantum-mechanical crystalline insulators, higher multipole bulk moments manifest themselves by the presence of boundary-localized moments of lower dimension, in exact correspondence with the electromagnetic theory of classical continuous dielectrics. In the presence of certain symmetries, these moments …
High-order topological insulators (TIs) are a family of recently-predicted topological phases of matter obeying an extended topological bulk-boundary correspondence principle. For example, a two-dimensional (2D) second-order TI does not exhibit gapless one-dimensional (1D) topological edge states, like a standard 2D TI, but instead has topologically-protected zero-dimensional (0D) corner states. So far, higher-order TIs have been demonstrated only in classical mechanical and electromagnetic metamaterials exhibiting quantized quadrupole polarization. Here, we experimentally realize a second-ord…
Recent theoretical studies have extended the Berry phase framework to account for higher electric multipole moments, quadrupole and octupole topological phases have been proposed. Although the two-dimensional quantized quadrupole insulators have been demonstrated experimentally, octupole topological phases have not previously been observed experimentally. Here we report on the experimental realization of classical analog of octupole topological insulator in the electric circuit system. Three-dimensional topolectrical circuits for realizing such topological phases are constructed experimentally…
In this work, we study the topological phases of the dimerized square lattice in the presence of an external magnetic field. The dimerization pattern in the lattice's hopping amplitudes can induce a series of bulk energy gap openings in the Hofstadter spectrum at certain fractional fillings, giving rise to various topological phases. In particular, we show that at $\frac{1}{2}$-filling the topological quadrupole insulator phase with a quadrupole moment quantized to $\frac{e}{2}$ and associated corner-localized mid-gap states exists in certain parameter regime for all magnetic fluxes. At $\frac…
The disorder effects on higher-order topological phases in periodic systems have attracted much attention. However, in aperiodic systems, such as quasicrystalline systems, the interplay between disorder and higher-order topology is still unclear. In this paper, we investigate the effects of disorder on two types of second-order topological insulators, including a quasicrystalline quadrupole insulator and a modified quantum spin Hall insulator, in a two-dimensional Amman-Beenker tiling quasicrystalline lattice. We demonstrate that the higher-order topological insulators are robust against weak …
Current understanding of higher-order topological insulators (HOTIs) is based primarily on crystalline materials. Here, we propose that HOTIs can be realized in quasicrystals. Specifically, we show that two distinct types of second-order topological insulators (SOTIs) can be constructed on the quasicrystalline lattices (QLs) with different tiling patterns. One is derived by using a Wilson mass term to gap out the edge states of the quantum spin Hall insulator on QLs. The other is the quasicrystalline quadrupole insulator (QI) with a quantized quadrupole moment. We reveal some unusual features …
We study the orbital magnetic quadrupole moment (MQM) in three dimensional higher-order topological phases. Much like electric quadrupole moment, which is associated with a charge response on the boundaries of a finite sample, the diagonal components of the MQM manifest as surface-localized magnetization and hinge currents. The hinge current is generally not equal to the difference of surface magnetizations that intersect at the hinge, and we show this mismatch is precisely quantified by the bulk MQM. We derive a quantum mechanical formula for the layer-resolved magnetization in slab geometrie…
We theoretically study the generic behavior of the penetration depth of the edge states in two-dimensional quantum spin Hall systems. We found that the momentum-space width of the edge-state dispersion scales with the inverse of the penetration depth. As an example of well-localized edge states, we take the Bi(111) ultrathin film. Its edge states are found to extend almost over the whole Brillouin zone. Correspondingly, the bismuth (111) 1-bilayer system is proposed to have well-localized edge states in contrast to the HgTe quantum well.
The zero gap surface states of a 3D-topological insulator host highly mobile Dirac fermions with spin locked to the momentum. The high mobility attributed to absence of back scattering is reduced in presence of impurities on the surface. In particular, we discuss and compare scattering times for localized impurities on the surface, scattering between states of opposite helicity located on different surfaces coupled through a hybridization potential, and the role of magnetic impurities. Magnetic impurities give rise to an additional spin suppression factor. The role of warped bands and its infl…
We establish the correspondence between the fractional charge bound to a vortex in a textured lattice and the relevant bulk band topology in two-dimensional (2D) topological crystalline insulators. As a representative example, we consider the Kekule textured graphene whose bulk band topology is characterized by a 2D $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ topological invariant $ν_{\rm 2D}$ protected by inversion symmetry. The fractional charge localized at a vortex in the Kekule texture is shown to be related to the change in the bulk topological invariant $ν_{\rm 2D}$ around the vortex, as in the case of the Su-Sch…
In this work we predict several new types of topological semimetals that exhibit a bulk quadrupole moment. These semimetals are modeled with a 3D extension of the 2D quadrupole topological insulator. One type of semimetal has bulk nodes and gapped, topological surfaces. A second type, which we may call a higher order topological semimetal, has a gapped bulk, but harbors a Dirac semimetal with an even number of nodes on one or more surfaces. The final type has a gapped bulk, but harbors half of a Dirac semimetal on multiple surfaces. Each of these semimetals gives rise to mid-gap hinge states a…
We study the surface of a three-dimensional spin chiral $\mathrm{Z}_2$ topological insulator (class CII), demonstrating the possibility of its localization. This arises through an interplay of interaction and statistically-symmetric disorder, that confines the gapless fermionic degrees of freedom to a network of one-dimensional helical domain-walls that can be localized. We identify two distinct regimes of this gapless insulating phase, a `clogged' regime wherein the network localization is induced by its junctions between otherwise metallic helical domain-walls, and a `fully localized' regime…
Selective bulk-boundary correspondence in higher-order topological insulators with anticommuting mirror and chiral symmetries
Indiana University（印第安纳大学）；Department of Physics, Indiana University（印第安纳大学物理系）；Quantum Science and Engineering Center, Indiana University（印第安纳大学量子科学与工程中心）
We study two-terminal transport through two-dimensional periodically driven systems in which all bulk Floquet eigenstates are localized by disorder. We focus on the Anomalous Floquet-Anderson Insulator (AFAI) phase, a topologically-nontrivial phase within this class, which hosts topologically protected chiral edge modes coexisting with its fully localized bulk. We show that the unique properties of the AFAI yield remarkable far-from-equilibrium transport signatures: for a large bias between leads, a quantized amount of charge is transported through the system each driving period. Upon increasi…
We study the effects of extended and localized potentials and a magnetic field on the Dirac electrons residing at the surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator. We use a lattice model to numerically study the various states; we show how the potentials can be chosen in a way which effectively avoids the problem of fermion doubling on a lattice. We show that extended potentials of different shapes can give rise to states which propagate freely along the potential but decay exponentially away from it. For an infinitely long potential barrier, the dispersion and spin structure of these …
We uncover a new family of few-body topological phases in periodically driven fermionic systems in two dimensions. These phases, which we term correlation-induced anomalous Floquet insulators (CIAFIs), are characterized by quantized contributions to the bulk magnetization from multi-particle correlations, and are classified by a family of integer-valued topological invariants. The CIAFI phases do not require many-body localization, but arise in the generic situation of k-particle localization, where the system is localized (due to disorder) for any finite number of particles up to a maximum nu…
We investigate in a fully quantum-mechanical manner how the many-body excitation spectrum of topological insulators is affected by the presence of long-range Coulomb interactions. In the one-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model and its mirror-symmetric variant strongly localized plasmonic excitations are observed which originate from topologically non-trivial single-particle states. These \textit{"topological plasmons"} inherit some of the characteristics of their constituent topological single-particle states, but they are not equally well protected against disorder due to the admixture of …
Conventional topological insulators support boundary states that have one dimension lower than the bulk system that hosts them, and these states are topologically protected due to quantized bulk dipole moments. Recently, higher-order topological insulators have been proposed as a way of realizing topological states that are two or more dimensions lower than the bulk, due to the quantization of bulk quadrupole or octupole moments. However, all these proposals as well as experimental realizations have been restricted to real-space dimensions. Here we construct photonic higher-order topological i…
The low-energy band-structure of electrons propagating on a lateral surface of a heterostructure consisting of three dimensional topological insulator (TI) and magnetic insulator layers has been calculated. The energy spectrum is highly tunable depending on the relation between the interlayer tunneling amplitude, Zeeman energy and surface potential. A ratio between the first two parameters controls a topological transition between chiral and helical surface state band-structures. In the former case localized states, whose wave-functions are confined near single TI layers, emerge in a narrow pa…
Quadrupole topological phases, exhibiting protected boundary states that are themselves topological insulators of lower dimensions, have recently been of great interest. Extensions of these ideas from current tight binding models to continuum theories for realistic materials require the identification of quantized invariants describing the bulk quadrupole order. Here we identify the analog of quadrupole order in Maxwell's equations for a photonic crystal (PhC) and identify quadrupole topological photonic crystals formed through a band inversion process. Unlike prior studies relying on threaded…
Topological manipulation of waves is at the heart of the cutting-edge metamaterial researches. Quadrupole topological insulators were recently discovered in two-dimensional (2D) flux-threading lattices which exhibit higher-order topological wave trapping at both the edges and corners. Photonic crystals (PhCs), lying at the boundary between continuous media and discrete lattices, however, are incompatible with the present quadrupole topological theory. Here, we unveil quadrupole topological PhCs triggered by a twisting degree-of-freedom. Using a topologically trivial PhC as the motherboard, we …
This is a numerical study of quasiparticle localization in symmetry class \textit{BD} (realized, for example, in chiral \textit{p}-wave superconductors), by means of a staggered-fermion lattice model for two-dimensional Dirac fermions with a random mass. For sufficiently weak disorder, the system size dependence of the average (thermal) conductivity $σ$ is well described by an effective mass $M_{\rm eff}$, dependent on the first two moments of the random mass $M(\bm{r})$. The effective mass vanishes linearly when the average mass $\bar{M}\to 0$, reproducing the known insulator-insulator phase …
The spin-orbit torque induced by a topological insulator (TI) is theoretically examined for spin wave generation in a neighboring antiferromagnetic thin film. The investigation is based on the micromagnetic simulation of Néel vector dynamics and the analysis of transport properties in the TI. The results clearly illustrate that propagating spin waves can be achieved in the antiferromagnetic thin-film strip through localized excitation, traveling over a long distance. The oscillation amplitude gradually decays due to the non-zero damping as the Néel vector precesses around the magnetic easy axi…
