The current understanding of topological insulators and their classical wave analogs, such as photonic topological insulators, is mainly based on topological band theory. However, standard band theory does not apply to amorphous phases of matter, which are formed by non-crystalline lattices with no long-range positional order but only short-range order, exhibiting unique phenomena such as the glass-to-liquid transition. Here, we experimentally investigate amorphous variants of a Chern number-based photonic topological insulator. By tuning the disorder strength in the lattice, we demonstrate that photonic topological edge states can persist into the amorphous regime prior to the glass-to-liquid transition. After the transition to a liquid-like lattice configuration, the signatures of topological edge states disappear. This interplay between topology and short-range order in amorphous lattices paves the way for new classes of non-crystalline topological photonic bandgap materials.

目前对拓扑绝缘体及其经典波类似物（例如光子拓扑绝缘体）的理解主要基于拓扑能带理论。然而，标准能带理论并不适用于物质的非晶相，非晶相由非晶格形成，没有长程位置有序，只有短程有序，表现出玻璃到液体转变等独特现象。在这里，我们通过实验研究了基于陈数的光子拓扑绝缘体的非晶态变体。通过调整晶格中的无序强度，我们证明光子拓扑边缘态可以在玻璃到液体转变之前持续进入非晶状态。转变为类液体晶格结构后，拓扑边缘态的特征消失。非晶晶格中拓扑和短程有序之间的相互作用为新型非晶拓扑光子带隙材料铺平了道路。