• Accepted Paper

Observation of topological phases without crystalline counterparts

Mou Yan, Yu-Liang Tao, Yichong Hu, Zhenxing Cui, Jiong-Hao Wang, Gang Chen, and Yong Xu

Phys. Rev. B - Accepted 4 November, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/t6tm-yp51

Abstract

Topological phases have been extensively studied primarily in crystalline systems with translational symmetry. Recent theoretical studies, however, have demonstrated the existence of topological phases in quasicrystals that are absent in crystals. Here, we design a practically realizable tight-binding model on the Ammann-Beenker quasicrystalline lattice. This model respects eight-fold rotational and chiral symmetries, resulting in a higher-order topological phase with eight zero-energy corner modes that have no crystalline counterparts. We experimentally explore the topological phase in an acoustic quasicrystal. Surprisingly, we also discover symmetry-protected zero-energy modes near the center of the quasicrystal in a topologically trivial phase, a phenomenon not seen in crystals. We further experimentally observe these modes in a topologically trivial acoustic quasicrystal.

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