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Non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE), characterized by a majority of eigenstates localized at open boundaries, is one of the most iconic phenomena in non-Hermitian lattices. Despite notable experimental studies implemented, most of them witness only certain signs of the NHSE rather than the intrinsic exponential localization inherent in eigenstates, owing to the ubiquitous and inevitable background loss. Even worse, the experimental observation of the NHSE would be completely obscured in highly lossy cases. Here, we theoretically propose a dual test approach to eliminate the destructive loss effect and track the intrinsic NHSE that is essentially irrelevant to background loss. Experimentally, the effectiveness of this approach is precisely validated by one- and two-dimensional non-Hermitian acoustic lattices. Our study sheds new light on the previously untapped intrinsic aspect of the NHSE, which is of particular significance in non-Hermitian topological physics.

The nature of complex eigenenergy enables unique band topology to the non-Hermitian (NH) lattice systems. Recently, there has been a fast growing interest in the elusive winding and braiding topologies of the NH single and double bands, respectively. Here, we explore the even more intricate NH multi-band topology and present the first experimental characterization of the three-band braid relations by acoustic systems. Based on a concise tight-binding model, we design a ternary cavity-tube structure equipped with a highly controllable unidirectional coupler, through which the acoustic NH Bloch bands are experimentally reproduced in a synthetic dimension. We identify the NH three-band braid relations from both the perspectives of eigenvalues and eigenstates, including a noncommutative braid relation and a swappable braid relation. Our results could promote the understanding of NH Bloch band topology and pave the way toward designing new devices for manipulating acoustic states., Comment: 5 figures

Topological features embedded in ancient braiding and knotting arts endow significant impacts on our daily life and even cutting-edge science. Recently, fast growing efforts are invested to the braiding topology of complex Bloch bands in non-Hermitian systems. This new classification of band topology goes far beyond those established in Hermitian counterparts. Here, we present the first acoustic realization of the topological non-Hermitian Bloch braids, based on a two-band model easily accessible for realizing any desired knot structure. The non-Hermitian bands are synthesized by a simple binary cavity-tube system, where the long-range, complex-valued, and momentum-resolved couplings are accomplished by a well-controlled unidirectional coupler. In addition to directly visualizing various two-band braiding patterns, we unambiguously observe the highly-elusive topological phase transitions between them. Not only do our results provide a direct demonstration for the non-Hermitian band topology, but also the experimental techniques open new avenues for designing unconventional acoustic metamaterials., Comment: Accepted by PRL