The inverted pendulum, interface phonons and optic Tamm states

Abstract

The propagation of waves in periodic media is related to the parametric oscillators. We transpose the possibility that a parametric pendulum oscillates in the vicinity of its unstable equilibrium positions to the case of waves in lossless unidimensional periodic media. This concept formally applies to any kind of wave. We apply and develop it to the case of phonons in realizable structures and evidence new classes of phonons. Discussing the case of electromagnetic waves, we show that our concept is related to optic Tamm states one but extends it to periodic Optic Tamm state.