Breakdown of the symmetry constraint in a Floquet topological insulator
arXiv:2509.19992 · doi:10.1103/q18y-7b85
Abstract
A topological insulator is regarded as an ideal candidate for information storage and high-speed lossless electrical transmission devices due to robust topological protected boundary modes. Previous studies revealed that symmetry exerts an unbreakable constraint on the existence, classes, and orders of its boundary modes. It severely limits the controllability and application of a topological insulator. Here, we propose a Floquet-engineering method to break this symmetry-imposed constraint on a topological insulator. By applying periodic driving on a system belonging to a symmetry class that prohibits the existence of first-order topological phases, we find that rich first-order boundary modes are created. Interestingly, exotic hybrid-order topological insulators with coexisting first-order helical boundary modes and second-order corner modes not only in two different quasienergy gaps but also in one single gap are generated easily by periodic driving. Refreshing the prevailing understanding of symmetry constraint on topological phases, our result opens an avenue for the creation of exotic topological insulators without altering symmetries. It greatly expands the scope of the fabricated materials that host topological insulators.
References in corpus (44)
- Colloquium: Majorana Fermions in nuclear, particle and solid-state physics
- Realization of an anomalous Floquet topological system with ultracold atoms
- Chiral symmetry and bulk--boundary correspondence in periodically driven one-dimensional systems
- Topological invariants of Floquet systems: General formulation, special properties, and Floquet topological defects
- Higher-Order Weyl Semimetals
- Higher-order Weyl Semimetals
- Symmetric Real Dirac Fermions and Semimetals
- Floquet Topological Phases of Non-Hermitian Systems
- Chiral-Symmetric Higher-Order Topological Phases of Matter
- Realizing Su-Schrieffer-Heeger topological edge states in Rydberg-atom synthetic dimensions
- Boundary criticality of -invariant topology and second-order nodal-line semimetals
- Noise-resilient Edge Modes on a Chain of Superconducting Qubits
- Acoustic Möbius insulators from projective symmetry
- Higher-order topological phases on fractal lattices
- Hierarchy of higher-order Floquet topological phases in three dimensions
- Acoustic Higher-Order Weyl Semimetal with Bound Hinge States in the Continuum
- Floquet generation of Second Order Topological Superconductor
- 3D hinge transport in acoustic higher-order topological insulators
- Switching spinless and spinful topological phases with projective symmetry
- Observation of pi/2 modes in an acoustic Floquet system
- Floquet second-order topological insulators in non-Hermitian systems
- Floquet control of quantum dissipation in spin chains
- Simulating Chern insulators on a superconducting quantum processor
- Spinful topological phases in acoustic crystals with projective PT symmetry
- Weyl nodes with higher-order topology in an optically driven nodal-line semimetal
- Realization of Surface-Obstructed Topological Insulators
- Topological electronic structure and spin texture of quasi-one-dimensional higher-order topological insulator Bi4Br4
- Transition from metal to higher-order topological insulator driven by random flux
- Observation of Floquet topological phases with large Chern numbers
- Cryogenic in-memory computing using magnetic topological insulators
- Optically induced topological superconductivity via Floquet interaction engineering
- Unified characterization for higher-order topological phase transitions
- Higher-Order Topological Insulators via Momentum-Space Nonsymmorphic Symmetries
- Engineering anomalous Floquet Majorana modes and their time evolution in helical Shiba chain
- Hybrid-order topological odd-parity superconductors via Floquet engineering
- Observation of topological prethermal strong zero modes
- Floquet second-order topological Anderson insulator hosting corner localized modes
- Topological edge states at Floquet quantum criticality
- Anomalous topological edge modes in a periodically-driven trimer lattice
- Non-Hermitian Origin of Detachable Boundary States in Topological Insulators
- Time evolution of Majorana corner modes in Floquet second-order topological superconductor
- Floquet topological phases with large winding number
- Bulk-entanglement spectrum correspondence in - and -symmetric topological insulators and superconductors
- Majorana modes in trapped-ion system and their Floquet engineering