Multiple Weyl and Double-Weyl Points in an Elastic Chiral Lattice

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the existence of multiple Weyl and double Weyl points in a chiral elastic lattice, combining theoretical modeling, design, and numerical verification to explore topological properties and protected surface modes.

Contribution

It introduces a practical chiral elastic structure exhibiting Weyl points, validated through tight-binding models and numerical simulations, advancing topological elastic metamaterials.

Findings

Weyl and double Weyl points are found at specific Brillouin zone locations.

Topologically protected surface modes are demonstrated.

Robustness of surface modes against defects is confirmed.

Abstract

We show that Multiple Weyl and double Weyl points arise in a chiral elastic system through stacking many two-dimensional honeycomb mechanical structures. On the distinct kz plane, the band structures calculated from tight-binding model exhibit the presence of Weyl points at Brillouin vertices and double Weyl Points at Brillouin centre. Based on the tight-binding model, we design a practical chiral mechanical structure which can be fabricated by current 3D printing technology. The numerical calculation illustrates several Weyl and double-Weyl points as expected in our analysis of tight-binding model. To verify the topological feature, topological charges of every degeneracy are calculated. Within these Weyl points, we theoretically prove that the existence of topologically protected surface modes, and their robustness against defects are also demonstrated.