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Gigahertz topological phononic circuits based on micrometre-scale unsuspended waveguide arrays

Nature Electronics volume 8, pages 689–697 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

The manipulation of gigahertz-frequency acoustic waves is of use in both classical and quantum applications. Topological phononics can provide robust acoustic control, but practical implementations are typically limited to low frequencies or lack scalability. Here we report reconfigurable topological phononic circuits that operate at 1.5 GHz. The approach is based on micrometre-scale unsuspended waveguides that tightly confine the acoustic waves. We use a custom-built high-resolution scanning optical vibrometer. Our visualization of the spatial evolution of topological edge states and robust Thouless pumping is in agreement with our theoretical analysis. We also develop a topological phononic Mach–Zehnder interferometer that can rapidly switch topological phonon transmission paths to provide acoustic intensity modulation with a 3 dB bandwidth of 0.65 kHz. Our work provides a reconfigurable, compact and scalable topological phononic chip that works at microwave frequencies.

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Fig. 1: Topological phononic chip platform.
Fig. 2: Directional couplers of the integrated phononic waveguide.
Fig. 3: Topological edge states and topological pumping.
Fig. 4: Topologically protected phononic power splitter and MZI.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The code used in this work are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 92265210, 92165209, 92365301, 11925404, 123B2068, 12104441 and 12061131011) and the Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics (Grant No. 2024BNLCMPKF007). We acknowledge support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) Research Funds of the Double First-Class Initiative. Y.J. acknowledges startup funds from Penn State University. The numerical calculations in this paper were done on the supercomputing system in the Supercomputing Center of the USTC. This work was partially carried out at the USTC Center for Micro and Nanoscale Research and Fabrication.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Xin-Biao Xu, Mourad Oudich, Yu Zeng.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

    Xin-Biao Xu, Yu Zeng, Ji-Zhe Zhang, Yuan-Hao Yang, Jia-Qi Wang, Guang-Can Guo & Chang-Ling Zou

  2. CAS Center For Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

    Xin-Biao Xu, Yu Zeng, Ji-Zhe Zhang, Yuan-Hao Yang, Jia-Qi Wang, Guang-Can Guo & Chang-Ling Zou

  3. Graduate Program in Acoustics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Mourad Oudich & Yun Jing

  4. Université de Lorraine, CNRS, Institut Jean Lamour, Nancy, France

    Mourad Oudich

  5. Center for Quantum Information, Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Weiting Wang & Luyan Sun

  6. Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei, China

    Luyan Sun, Guang-Can Guo & Chang-Ling Zou

Authors
  1. Xin-Biao Xu
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Contributions

X.-B.X. and M.O. conceived the experiments. X.-B.X. and Y.Z. designed and fabricated the devices, built the experimental set-up, carried out the measurements and analysed the data with the assistance of C.-L.Z., J.-Z.Z., Y.-H.Y., J.-Q.W., W.W. and L.S. M.O. and Y.J. provided theoretical support. X.-B.X., L.S. and C.-L.Z. wrote the paper with input from all other authors. C.-L.Z., L.S., Y.J. and G.-C.G. supervised the project.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Mourad Oudich, Luyan Sun, Yun Jing or Chang-Ling Zou.

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Nature Electronics thanks Baile Zhang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Xu, XB., Oudich, M., Zeng, Y. et al. Gigahertz topological phononic circuits based on micrometre-scale unsuspended waveguide arrays. Nat Electron 8, 689–697 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-025-01437-8

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