Related papers: Nonlinear conduction via solitons in a topological…

We investigate heat conduction in a one-dimensional chain of rigid rotors. The rotors are constrained to rotate in a plane about fixed pivot points and coupled by springs, such that in equilibrium, the neighboring rotors lie on opposite…

It has been observed that certain classical chains admit topologically protected zero-energy modes that are localized on the boundaries. The static features of such localized modes are captured by linearized equations of motion, but the…

Linkages are mechanical devices constructed from rigid bars and freely rotating joints studied both for their utility in engineering and as mathematical idealizations in a number of physical systems. Recently, there has been a resurgence of…

The hallmark feature of topological insulators renders edge transport virtually impervious to scattering at defects and lattice disorder. In our work, we experimentally demonstrate a topological system, using a photonic platform, in which…

Mechanical metamaterials are artificial structures with unusual properties, such as negative Poisson ratio, bistability or tunable vibrational properties, that originate in the geometry of their unit cell. At the heart of such unusual…

Nonlinear mechanical metamaterials can exhibit emergent transport phenomena that mimic topological protection without relying on linear band topology. Here, we realize a bifurcation-induced nonreciprocal lattice that supports robust…

From protein motifs to black holes, topological solitons are pervasive nonlinear excitations that are robust and can be driven by external fields. So far, existing driving mechanisms all accelerate solitons and antisolitons in opposite…

The classification of materials into insulators and conductors has been shaken up by the discovery of topological insulators that conduct robustly at the edge but not in the bulk. In mechanics, designating a material as insulating or…

Mechanical metamaterials are periodic lattice structures with complex unit cell architectures that can achieve extraordinary mechanical properties beyond the capability of bulk materials. A new class of metamaterials is proposed, whose…

We explore the electronic structure and transport properties of a metal on top of a (weakly coupled) two-dimensional topological insulator. Unlike the widely studied junctions between topological non-trivial materials, the systems studied…

Existence of robust edge modes at interfaces of topologically dissimilar systems is one of the most fascinating manifestations of a novel nontrivial state of matter, topological insulators. Such electronic states were originally predicted…

Topological mechanical metamaterials have enabled new ways to control stress and deformation propagation. Exemplified by Maxwell lattices, they have been studied extensively using a linearized formalism. Herein, we study a two-dimensional…

In this paper, we employ a combination of analytical and numerical techniques to investigate the dynamics of lattice envelope vector soliton solutions propagating within a one-dimensional chain of flexible mechanical metamaterial. To model…

Advances in the next generation of mesoscopic electronics require an understanding of topological phases in inhomogeneous media and the principles that govern them. Motivated by the nature of motifs available in printable conducting inks,…

Torque and continuous rotation are fundamental methods of actuation and manipulation in rigid robots. Soft robot arms use soft materials and structures to mimic the passive compliance of biological arms that bend and extend. This use of…

Topological insulators insulate in the bulk but exhibit robust conducting edge states protected by the topology of the bulk material. Here, we design a colloidal topological insulator and demonstrate experimentally the occurrence of edge…

Circuits provide ideal platforms of topological phases and matter, yet the study of topological circuits in the strongly nonlinear regime, has been lacking. We propose and experimentally demonstrate strongly nonlinear topological phases and…

In this paper, we propose a novel type of serial robot with minimal actuation. The robot is a serial rigid structure consisting of multiple links connected by passive joints and of movable actuators. The novelty of this robot is that the…

Despite the extensive studies of topological systems, the experimental characterizations of strongly nonlinear topological phases have been lagging. To address this shortcoming, we design and build elliptically geared isostatic…

Elastic wave manipulation is important in a wide variety of scales in applications including information processing in tiny elastic devices and noise control in big solid structures. The recent emergence of topological materials opens a new…