Quadrupole topological phase and robust corner resonance in Kekulé hexagonal electric circuit

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) quadrupole topological insulators, featured by topologically protected 0D corner modes, have recently attracted tremendous interest in condensed matter and materials physics. Herein, we construct a specific electric circuit made of capacitors and inductors forming a 2D Kekulé hexagonal lattice for quadrupole topological phase and corner modes. Trivial–nontrivial topological phase transition can be controlled by varying capacitance in the circuit, so that distinct topological edge states appear in 1D ribbons and corner states emerge in 0D flakes. We explore the field strength distribution and two-point impedance with respect to excitation frequency, and reveal that the topological corner resonance is robust against size of the LC network and randomness of the capacitors/inductors, a great benefit for experimental detection. Our results enrich the family of designer topoelectrical circuit as a flexible and tunable platform to achieve exotic quantum phases, which may have potential for future telecommunications, signal processing and quantum computing.