Anomalous and Chern topological waves in hyperbolic networks

Abstract

Hyperbolic lattices are a new type of synthetic materials based on regular tessellations in non-Euclidean spaces with constant negative curvature. While so far, there has been several theoretical investigations of hyperbolic topological media, experimental work has been limited to time-reversal invariant systems made of coupled discrete resonances, leaving the more interesting case of robust, unidirectional edge wave transport completely unobserved. Here, we report a non-reciprocal hyperbolic network that exhibits both Chern and anomalous chiral edge modes, and implement it on a planar microwave platform. We experimentally evidence the unidirectional character of the topological edge modes by direct field mapping. We demonstrate the topological origin of these hyperbolic chiral edge modes by an explicit topological invariant measurement, performed from external probes. Our work extends the reach of topological wave physics by allowing for backscattering-immune transport in materials with synthetic non-Euclidean behavior.