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Register a new userWannier-type photonic higher-order topological corner states induced solely by gain and loss
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Photonic crystals have provided a controllable platform to examine excitingly new topological states in open systems. In this work, we reveal photonic topological corner states in a photonic graphene with mirror-symmetrically patterned gain and loss. Such a nontrivial Wannier-type higher-order topological phase is achieved through solely tuning on-site gain/loss strengths, which leads to annihilation of the two valley Dirac cones at a time-reversal-symmetric point, as the gain and loss change the effective tunneling between adjacent sites. We find that the symmetry-protected photonic corner modes exhibit purely imaginary energies and the role of the Wannier center as the topological invariant is illustrated. For experimental considerations, we also examine the topological interface states near a domain wall. Our work introduces an interesting platform for non-Hermiticity-induced photonic higher-order topological insulators, which, with current experimental technologies, can be readily accessed.
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The concept of topological phases has been generalized to higher-order topological insulators and superconductors with novel boundary states on corners or hinges. Meanwhile, recent experimental advances in controlling dissipation (such as gain and loss) open new possibilities in studying non-Hermitian topological phases. Here, we show that higher-order topological corner states can emerge by simply introducing staggered on-site gain/loss to a Hermitian system in trivial phases. For such a non-Hermitian system, we establish a general bulk-corner correspondence by developing a biorthogonal nested-Wilson-loop and edge-polarization theory, which can be applied to a wide class of non-Hermitian systems with higher-order topological orders. The theory gives rise to topological invariants characterizing the non-Hermitian topological multipole moments (i.e., corner states) that are protected by reflection or chiral symmetry. Such gain/loss induced higher-order topological corner states can be experimentally realized using photons in coupled cavities or cold atoms in optical lattices.
We report the theoretical discovery and characterization of higher-order Floquet topological phases dynamically generated in a periodically driven system with mirror symmetries. We demonstrate numerically and analytically that these phases support lower-dimensional Floquet bound states, such as corner Floquet bound states at the intersection of edges of a two-dimensional system, protected by the nonequilibrium higher-order topology induced by the periodic drive. We characterize higher-order Floquet topologies of the bulk Floquet Hamiltonian using mirror-graded Floquet topological invariants. This allows for the characterization of a new class of higher-order anomalous Floquet topological phase, where the corners of the open system host Floquet bound states with the same as well as with double the period of the drive. Moreover, we show that bulk vortex structures can be dynamically generated by a drive that is spatially inhomogeneous. We show these bulk vortices can host multiple Floquet bound states. This stirring drive protocol leverages a connection between higher-order topologies and previously studied fractionally charged, bulk topological defects. Our work establishes Floquet engineering of higher-order topological phases and bulk defects beyond equilibrium classification and offers a versatile tool for dynamical generation and control of topologically protected Floquet corner and bulk bound states.
The recently established paradigm of higher-order topological states of matter has shown that not only, as previously thought, edge and surface states but also states localised to corners can have robust and exotic properties. Here we report on the experimental realisation of novel corner states made out of classical light in three-dimensional photonic structures inscribed in glass samples using femtosecond (fs) laser technology. By creating and analysing waveguide arrays forming two-dimensional breathing kagome lattices in various sample geometries, we establish this as a platform for corner states exhibiting a remarkable degree of flexibility and control. In each sample geometry we measure eigenmodes that are localised at the corners in a finite frequency range in complete analogy with a theoretical model of the breathing kagome. Here, the measurements reveal that light can be fractionalised, corresponding to simultaneous localisation to each corner of a triangular sample, even in the presence of defects. The fabrication method applied in this work exposes the advantage of using fs-laser writing for producing compact three-dimensional devices thus paving the way for technological applications by simulating novel higher-order states of matter.
Recently, higher-order topological phases that do not obey the usual bulk-edge correspondence principle have been introduced in electronic insulators and brought into classical systems, featuring with in-gap corner/hinge states. So far, second-order topological insulators have been realized in mechanical metamaterials, microwave circuit, topolectrical circuit and acoustic metamaterials. Here, using near-field scanning measurements, we show the direct observation of corner states in second-order topological photonic crystal (PC) slabs consisting of periodic dielectric rods on a perfect electric conductor (PEC). Based on the generalized two-dimensional (2D) Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model, we show that the emergence of corner states roots in the nonzero edge dipolar polarization instead of the nonzero bulk quadrupole polarization. We demonstrate the topological transition of 2D Zak phases of PC slabs by tuning intra-cell distances between two neighboring rods. We also directly observe in-gap 1D edge states and 0D corner states in the microwave regime. Our work presents that the PC slab is a powerful platform to directly observe topological states, and paves the way to study higher-order photonic topological insulators.
Spectral measurements of boundary localized in-gap modes are commonly used to identify topological insulators via the bulk-boundary correspondence. This can be extended to high-order topological insulators for which the most striking feature is in-gap modes at boundaries of higher co-dimension, e.g. the corners of a 2D material. Unfortunately, this spectroscopic approach is not always viable since the energies of the topological modes are not protected and they can often overlap the bulk bands, leading to potential misidentification. Since the topology of a material is a collective product of all its eigenmodes, any conclusive indicator of topology must instead be a feature of its bulk band structure, and should not rely on specific eigen-energies. For many topological crystalline insulators the key topological feature is fractional charge density arising from the filled bulk bands, but measurements of charge distributions have not been accessible to date. In this work, we experimentally measure boundary-localized fractional charge density of two distinct 2D rotationally-symmetric metamaterials, finding 1/4 and 1/3 fractionalization. We then introduce a new topological indicator based on collective phenomenology that allows unambiguous identification of higher-order topology, even in the absence of in-gap states. Finally, we demonstrate the higher-order bulk-boundary correspondence associated with this fractional feature by using boundary deformations to spectrally isolate localized corner modes where they were previously unobservable.
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