Topological surface wave metamaterials for robust vibration attenuation and energy harvesting

Abstract

We propose topological metamaterials working in Hertz frequency range, constituted of concrete pillars on the soil ground in a honeycomb lattice. Based on the analog of the quantum valley Hall effect, a non-trivial bandgap is formed by breaking the inversion symmetry of the unit cell. A topological interface is created between two different crystal phases whose robustness against various defects and disorders is quantitatively analyzed. Finally, we take advantage of the robust and compact topological edge state for designing a harvesting energy device. The results demonstrate the functionality of the proposed structure for both robust surface vibration reduction and energy harvesting.

Keywords:

• Surface wave metamaterial
• topological insulator
• vibration attenuation
• energy harvesting
• robustness

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11902223), the Shanghai Pujiang Program (19PJ1410100), the program for professor of special appointment (Eastern Scholar) at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, high-level of foreign expert program of Tongji University and Shanghai municipal peak discipline program (2019010106). This work is also partially supported by the French EIPHI Graduate School (contract "ANR-17-EURE-0002").