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Topological States and Adiabatic Pumping in Quasicrystals

2012; American Physical Society; Volume: 109; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physrevlett.109.106402

1092-0145

Yaacov E. Kraus, Yoav Lahini, Zohar Ringel, Mor Verbin, Oded Zilberberg,

Quantum Mechanics and Non-Hermitian Physics

The unrelated discoveries of quasicrystals and topological insulators have in turn challenged prevailing paradigms in condensed-matter physics. We find a surprising connection between quasicrystals and topological phases of matter: (i) quasicrystals exhibit nontrivial topological properties and (ii) these properties are attributed to dimensions higher than that of the quasicrystal. Specifically, we show, both theoretically and experimentally, that one-dimensional quasicrystals are assigned two-dimensional Chern numbers and, respectively, exhibit topologically protected boundary states equivalent to the edge states of a two-dimensional quantum Hall system. We harness the topological nature of these states to adiabatically pump light across the quasicrystal. We generalize our results to higher-dimensional systems and other topological indices. Hence, quasicrystals offer a new platform for the study of topological phases while their topology may better explain their surface properties.