  Photonic systems with parity-time (PT) symmetry and topology are attracting
considerable attentions. In this work, topological near-zero edge states are
studied in PT-symmetric photonic lattice and the results indicate that the
near-zero edge states can be broken spontaneously in spite of the unbroken PT
symmetry. To achieve the stable topological near-zero mode, a binary lattice
with carefully designed PT-symmetric is proposed. Further study shows such a
structure supports a stable topological interface state experiences phase
transition similar to the bulk states in infinite lattice and thus possess
real-eigenvalues even with unbroken PT phase. Our study enriches the content of
non-Hermitian topological physics and might have potential applications in the
fields of topological lasing and quantum computation.
