No Arabic abstract
Here, the frequency degree of freedom is introduced into valley photonic crystals with dual band gaps. Based on the high-order plane wave expansion model, we derive an effective Hamiltonian which characterizes dual band gaps. Metallic valley photonic crystals are demonstrated as examples in which all four topological phases are found. At the domain walls between topologically distinct valley photonic crystals, frequency-dependent edge states are demonstrated and a broadband photonic detouring is proposed. Our findings provide the guidance for designing the frequency-dependent property of topological structures and show its potential applications in wavelength division multiplexers.
We demonstrate that multiple higher-order topological transitions can be triggered via the continuous change of the geometry in kagome photonic crystals composed of three dielectric rods. By tuning a single geometry parameter, the photonic corner and edge states emerge or disappear with the higher-order topological transitions. Two distinct higher-order topological insulator phases and a normal insulator phase are revealed. Their topological indices are obtained from symmetry representations. A photonic analog of fractional corner charge is introduced to distinguish the two higher-order topological insulator phases. Our predictions can be readily realized and verified in configurable dielectric photonic crystals.
Quadrupole topological phases, exhibiting protected boundary states that are themselves topological insulators of lower dimensions, have recently been of great interest. Extensions of these ideas from current tight binding models to continuum theories for realistic materials require the identification of quantized invariants describing the bulk quadrupole order. Here we identify the analog of quadrupole order in Maxwells equations for a photonic crystal (PhC) and identify quadrupole topological photonic crystals formed through a band inversion process. Unlike prior studies relying on threaded flux, our quadrupole moment is quantized purely by crystalline symmetries, which we confirm using three independent methods: analysis of symmetry eigenvalues, numerical calculations of the nested Wannier bands, and the expectation value of the quadrupole operator. Furthermore, through the bulk-edge correspondence of Wannier bands, we reveal the boundary manifestations of nontrivial quadrupole phases as quantized polarizations at edges and bound states at corners. Finally, we relate the nontrivial corner states to the emergent phenomena of quantized fractional corner charges and a filling anomaly as first predicted in electronic systems. Our work paves the way to further explore higher-order topological phases in nanophotonic systems and our method of inducing quadrupole phase transitions is also applicable to other wave systems, such as electrons, phonons and polaritons.
The discovery of photonic topological insulators (PTIs) has opened the door to fundamentally new topological states of light.Current time-reversal-invariant PTIs emulate either the quantum spin Hall (QSH) effect or the quantum valley Hall (QVH) effect in condensed-matter systems, in order to achieve topological transport of photons whose propagation is predetermined by either photonic pseudospin (abbreviated as spin) or valley. Here we demonstrate a new class of PTIs, whose topological phase is not determined solely by spin or valley, but is controlled by the competition between their induced gauge fields. Such a competition is enabled by tuning the strengths of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and inversion-symmetry breaking in a single PTI. An unprecedented topological transition between QSH and QVH phases that is hard to achieve in condensed-matter systems is demonstrated. Our study merges the emerging fields of spintronics and valleytronics in the same photonic platform, and offers novel PTIs with reconfigurable topological phases.
Engineering local angular momentum of structured light fields in real space enables unprecedented applications in many fields, in particular for the realization of unidirectional robust transport in topological photonic crystals with non-trivial Berry vortex in momentum space. Here, we show transverse angular momentum modes in silicon topological photonic crystals when considering transverse electric polarization. Excited by a chiral external source with either transverse spin or orbital angular momentum, robust light flow propagating along opposite directions was observed in several kinds of sharp-turn interfaces between two topologically-distinct silicon photonic crystals. A transverse orbital angular momentum mode with alternating-sign topological charge was found at the boundary of such two photonic crystals. In addition, we also found that unidirectional transport is robust to the working frequency even when the ring-size or location of pseudo-spin source varies in a certain range, leading to the superiority of broadband photonic device. These findings enable for making use of transverse angular momentum, a kind of degree of freedom, to achieve unidirectional robust transport in telecom region and other potential applications in integrated photonic circuits such as on-chip robust delay line.
Topological photonics aims to utilize topological photonic bands and corresponding edge modes to implement robust light manipulation, which can be readily achieved in the linear regime of light-matter interaction. Importantly, unlike solid state physics, the common test bed for new ideas in topological physics, topological photonics provide an ideal platform to study wave mixing and other nonlinear interactions. These are well-known topics in classical nonlinear optics but largely unexplored in the context of topological photonics. Here, we investigate nonlinear interactions of one-way edge-modes in frequency mixing processes in topological photonic crystals. We present a detailed analysis of the band topology of two-dimensional photonic crystals with hexagonal symmetry and demonstrate that nonlinear optical processes, such as second- and third-harmonic generation can be conveniently implemented via one-way edge modes of this setup. Moreover, we demonstrate that more exotic phenomena, such as slow-light enhancement of nonlinear interactions and harmonic generation upon interaction of backward-propagating (left-handed) edge modes can also be realized. Our work opens up new avenues towards topology-protected frequency mixing processes in photonics.