One-dimensional synthetic waterborne phononic crystals

Underwater acoustics has wide applications in underwater communication, underwater positioning, underwater navigation, and so on. Inspired by the concept of topological physics, the study of topological states in waterborne phononic crystals provides a brand-new way for innovatively controlling underwater waves, which has both basic research value and important application prospects. In this work, we design a one-dimensional bilayer iron grid waterborne phononic crystal to realize a synthetic two-dimensional Dirac point by considering the relative lateral translation between the two layers as a synthetic dimension. Through changing the relative lateral translation, the double degenerate band opens a gap, which is characterized by the valley Chern number. As the band gap opens, closes and reopens, the bulk band undergoes a band inversion, that is, a topological phase transition from one valley topological phase to another. At the interface formed by two phononic crystals with distinct valley topological phases, the valley Chen number ensures the deterministic existence of the interface state. Experimental measurements are in good agreement with numerical simulations, both showing the bulk bands of waterborne phononic crystals at different valley topological phases and the interface state dispersion between them. The waterborne phononic crystal proposed in this work has a simple structure. With the help of the concept of synthetic dimension, it provides an effective way to study the topological properties of high-dimensional systems in low-dimensional real space systems, and gives new ideas for designing topological functional underwater acoustic devices. In addition, we can expand the real space system to two or even three dimensions, and introduce more synthetic dimensions to study the topological states and associated transport characteristics of higher-dimensional systems.