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In this work, we examine the topological phases of the spring-mass lattices when the spatial inversion symmetry of the system is broken and prove the existence of edge modes when two lattices with different topological phases are glued together. In particular, for the one-dimensional lattice consisting of an infinite array of masses connected by springs, we show that the Zak phase of the lattice is quantized, only taking the value 0 or $\pi$. We also prove the existence of an edge mode when two semi-infinite lattices with distinct Zak phases are connected. For the two-dimensional honeycomb lattice, we characterize the valley Chern numbers of the lattice when the masses on the lattice vertices are uneven. The existence of edge modes is proved for a joint honeycomb lattice formed by gluing two semi-infinite lattices with opposite valley Chern numbers together. 

This work is concerned with inverse design of the grating metasurface over hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) in order to enhance spontaneous emission (SE). We formulate the design problem as a PDE-constrained optimization problem and employ the gradient descent method to solve the underlying optimization problem. The adjoint-state method is applied to compute the gradient of the objective function efficiently. Computational results show that the SE efficiency of the optical structure with the optimized metasurface increases by 600% in the near field compared to the bare HMM layer. In particular, an optimized double-slot metasurface obtained by this design method enhances the SE intensity by a factor of over 100 in the observation region. 

Abstract This work presents a rigorous theory for topological photonic materials in one dimension. The main focus is on the existence of interface modes that are induced by topological properties of the bulk structure. For a general 1D photonic structure with time-reversal symmetry, we investigate the existence of an interface mode that is induced by a Dirac point upon perturbation. Specifically, we establish conditions on the perturbation which guarantee the opening of a band gap around the Dirac point and the existence of an interface mode. For a periodic photonic structure with both time-reversal and inversion symmetry, the Zak phase is quantized, taking only two values 0 , π . We show that the Zak phase is determined by the parity (even or odd) of the Bloch modes at the band edges. For a photonic structure consisting of two semi-infinite systems on the two sides of an interface with distinct topological indices, we show the existence of an interface mode inside the common gap. The stability of the mode under perturbations is also investigated. Finally, we study resonances for finite topological structures. Our results are based on the transfer matrix method and the oscillation theory for Sturm–Liouville operators. The methods and results can be extended to general topological Sturm–Liouville systems in one dimension.