Research Article

Disordered transmission-line networks with and without parity symmetry

Department of Physics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong, PR China

^* e-mail: phchan@ust.hk

Received: 28 November 2021
Accepted: 16 January 2022
Published online: 17 February 2022

Abstract

Topological states are useful because they are robust against disorder and imperfection. In this study, we consider the effect of disorder and the breaking of parity symmetry on a topological network system in which the edge states are protected by Chern numbers. In the absence of periodicity, the local Chern number is adopted to characterize the topological features of the network. Our numerical results show that the local Chern number and the edge states are very robust against onsite disorder as long as the gap of the bulk state continuum remains open and survives even when the bulk band gap is closed. Breaking the parity symmetry can destroy the quantization of local Chern numbers, compromising the existence of edge modes. We observed non-integer local Chern number peaks that are non-zero inside the bulk bands but these non-zero non-integral local Chern numbers are not associated with the existence of robust edge states.