Robust high capacity in-plane elastic wave transport in 2D chiral metastructures

Novel 2D tri-chiral metastructures with mass inclusion are proposed in this work. Compared to conventional 2D honeycomb metastructures, these superior metastructures have a wide in-plane low-frequency bandgap (BG) and single Dirac cone (DC) simultaneously. Ligament width and inclusion density are both key factors for tuning the DC and low-frequency BGs. Due to the superior dispersion properties, metamolecules analog of quantum spin Hall effects (QSHEs) are built by the band folding method, and topological phase transition is obtained by shrinking/expanding distance between the mass inclusion and metamolecule center. Topological interface states (TISs) are observed between the two domains with distinct topological properties. To further enhance energy capacity of in-plane elastic wave transport, a 2D heterostructure is constructed by doping waveguiding layer at the topological interface. As expected, robust high capacity in-plane elastic wave transport is realized, named as topological waveguide states (TWSs). While TWS velocity remains unaffected, an increasing number of waveguiding layers additionally leads to a reduced bandgap width and transition from TWSs to conventional edge states (CESs). Average transmitted energy is also observed to increase almost linearly with the thickness of waveguide layer. By virtue of the robust high-capacity wave transport, two potential applications for energy focusing and beam splitting are clearly demonstrated. Besides, the temperature field is introduced into the 2D topological heterostructure to widen the operating frequency of TWSs. Fortunately, TWSs can be tuned to the lower frequency range by increasing temperature, and retain gapless and high-capacity characteristics. Last but not least, we demonstrate that temperature can be used as a switch for in-plane topological wave transport. The proposed 2D chiral metastructures have great potentials to serve as building blocks for multifunctional topological devices.