Zero-index and Topology in 1D Phononic Metamaterials with Negative Mass and Negative Coupling

Abstract: Phononic metamaterials have attracted extensive attention since they are exibly adjustable to control the phonon transmission. In this work, we study a one-dimensional phononic metamaterial, made of mechanical resonant oscillators and chiral couplings. We show that by design, the oscillator mass and inter-oscillator coupling, although both are positive naturally, can be either single negative or double negative effectively within a certain frequency range. At the frequency where the effective mass and coupling are both infinite, a flat band emerges that will induce an extremely high density of states. At the critical point of band degeneracy, a Dirac-like point emerges where both effective mass and the inverse of effective coupling are simultaneously zero, so that zero index is realized for phonons. Moreover, the phononic topological phase transition is observed that the phononic band gap switches between single mass-negative and single coupling-negative regime. As a consequence, a topological interface state is identified, well explained by the theory.