Substrate-driven topological engineering in plasmonic Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chains
Abstract
We demonstrate the possibility of engineering the topological band structure of a plasmonic Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) chain through the interaction with its electromagnetic environment. We find that the long-range interaction of the in-plane modes of the SSH chain with the surface plasmon polaritons of a planar substrate introduces a band hybridization connected to a change of the Zak phase. On the other hand, the short-range interaction with the substrate introduces a band touching, again with a change in the Zak phase. Surprisingly, this second mechanism enables the emergence of topologically protected edge modes for parameters which correspond to the topologically trivial phase for an isolated plasmonic SSH chain. We study these mechanisms by changing the chain-substrate distance and the dimerization parameter. Finally, we discuss the robustness against disorder and, as one example, the impact of the observed effects on the near-field radiative heat transfer and the local density of states along the chain. Our findings pave the way to the engineering of edge modes in plasmonic topological configurations via the coupling to a plasmonic environment.
Related
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- Transport properties and topological phase transitions for a Creutz-Su-Schrieffer-Heeger ladder
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- Engineering Giant Thermoelectric Performance through Electrode-Coupling Geometry and Magnetic Flux in Quasiperiodic Su-Schrieffer-Heeger Rings
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BibTeX
@misc{herz2026substratedriven,
title = {{Substrate-driven topological engineering in plasmonic Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chains}},
author = {Florian Herz and Alireza Naeimi and Svend-Age Biehs},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.28463},
eprint = {2605.28463},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.28463},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Substrate-driven topological engineering in plasmonic Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chains
AU - Florian Herz
AU - Alireza Naeimi
AU - Svend-Age Biehs
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/18
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.28463
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.28463
AB - We demonstrate the possibility of engineering the topological band structure of a plasmonic Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) chain through the interaction with its electromagnetic environment. We find that the long-range interaction of the in-plane modes of the SSH chain with the surface plasmon polaritons of a planar substrate introduces a band hybridization connected to a change of the Zak phase. On the other hand, the short-range interaction with the substrate introduces a band touching, again with a change in the Zak phase. Surprisingly, this second mechanism enables the emergence of topologically protected edge modes for parameters which correspond to the topologically trivial phase for an isolated plasmonic SSH chain. We study these mechanisms by changing the chain-substrate distance and the dimerization parameter. Finally, we discuss the robustness against disorder and, as one example, the impact of the observed effects on the near-field radiative heat transfer and the local density of states along the chain. Our findings pave the way to the engineering of edge modes in plasmonic topological configurations via the coupling to a plasmonic environment.
ER -