Reentrant melting of scarred odd crystals by self-shear

Abstract

Spatial confinement can induce geometrical frustration in condensed phases, giving rise to topological defects that confer materials with new and exotic properties. Here, we experimentally uncover the remarkable effect of confinement-induced defect strings termed `grain boundary scars' on the behavior of dense two-dimensional assemblies of granular spinners, a canonical odd elastic solid. We show that the spatial arrangement of these scars fundamentally reshapes the flows triggered by chiral activity. Specifically, they cause the topologically protected edge flows - a ubiquitous feature of confined spinner assemblies - to decouple from the bulk. Strikingly, increasing the net chiral activity of the system by tuning the ratio of counterclockwise to clockwise spinners caused spontaneous self-shearing. The resulting odd radial stresses led to a chiral activity-mediated reentrant melting transition at a fixed areal spinner density. Our findings open new avenues for exploiting geometrical frustration to elicit novel responses from odd elastic solids.