Topological rainbow trapping of shear horizontal waves in a phononic crystal plate with tapered surface

Abstract Topological interface states have localized field enhancement characteristics. Integrating them with the concept of rainbow trapping undoubtedly be a more effective method for elastic energy localization and collection. In this paper, the tunable interface state of shear horizontal (SH) waves is realized in a one-dimensional (1D) phononic crystal (PC) plate by modifying the structural parameters of unit cells with tapered surfaces, where the interface state emerges in the overlapping band gaps of two types of unit cells with different Zak phases. Furthermore, we assembled seven types of unit cells with gradient variations, achieving topological rainbow trapping. Meanwhile, the robustness of the rainbow state has been demonstrated, and more separated frequencies are obtained by changing the order of these unit cells. The results of the study demonstrate that the highly localized, compact, and broadband tunable topological rainbow system we designed holds promise for applications in areas such as elastic energy harvesting, filtering, and multi-frequency signal processing.