Realization of a universal topological waveguide by tuning adiabatic geometry

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that implementing adiabatic geometry in a micro electromechanical system suppresses valley mixing, enhances topological protection, and enables flexible, robust waveguides with complex geometries.

Contribution

It introduces a novel adiabatic geometry approach to suppress valley mixing, restoring topological protection in armchair boundaries for practical waveguide applications.

Findings

Adiabatic geometry suppresses valley mixing in topological waveguides.

Enhanced topological protection extends across a broad frequency range.

Waves propagate through complex bent waveguides with restored robustness.

Abstract

Quantum valley Hall-based topological phases have been attracting attention across diverse fields as a robust platform for wave guidance due to their high compatibility with engineering frameworks. Combining three representative boundary types enables topological waveguides with flexible designability and enhanced functionality. However, one of the three, namely the armchair boundary, has long been limited by inter-valley scattering, resulting in weak topological protection and severely restricting its use in practical devices. This long-standing constraint is a major barrier to realizing broadly applicable topological waveguide systems. Here, to address this challenge toward a broadly applicable design framework for topological waveguides, we experimentally demonstrate that topological adiabatic geometry implemented in a micro electromechanical system suppresses valley mixing. We found that the adiabaticity enhances immunity to defects and increases the transmission efficiency of the armchair boundary. As the adiabaticity increases, topological protection is recovered over an increasingly broad portion of the bulk band gap, extending from low to high frequencies. Furthermore, we show that the recovery of protection in the adiabatic armchair boundary enables waves to propagate through 90^{\deg} and 150^{\deg}-bent waveguides by coupling with other interface geometries. Suppressing valley mixing via adiabaticity paves the way for a universal design framework for topological waveguides and for restoring robust topological characteristics across a wide range of wave phenomena.