No Arabic abstract
Exceptional points (EPs) are singularities of energy levels in non-Hermitian systems. In this Letter, we demonstrate the surface of EPs on a magnon polariton platform composed of coupled magnons and microwave photons. Our experiments show that EPs form a three-dimensional exceptional surface (ES) when the system is tuned in a four-dimensional synthetic space. We demonstrated that there exists an exceptional saddle point (ESP) in the ES which originates from the unique couplings between magnons and microwave photons. Such an ESP exhibits unique anisotropic behaviors in both the real and imaginary part of the eigenfrequencies. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first experimental observation of ES, opening up new opportunities for high-dimensional control of non-Hermitian systems.
Magnon-polaritons are hybrid light-matter quasiparticles originating from the strong coupling between magnons and photons. They have emerged as a potential candidate for implementing quantum transducers and memories. Owing to the dampings of both photons and magnons, the polaritons have limited lifetimes. However, stationary magnon-polariton states can be reached by a dynamical balance between pumping and losses, so the intrinsical nonequilibrium system may be described by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. Here we design a tunable cavity quantum electrodynamics system with a small ferromagnetic sphere in a microwave cavity and engineer the dissipations of photons and magnons to create cavity magnon-polaritons which have non-Hermitian spectral degeneracies. By tuning the magnon-photon coupling strength, we observe the polaritonic coherent perfect absorption and demonstrate the phase transition at the exceptional point. Our experiment offers a novel macroscopic quantum platform to explore the non-Hermitian physics of the cavity magnon-polaritons.
The rise of quantum science and technologies motivates photonics research to seek new platforms with strong light-matter interactions to facilitate quantum behaviors at moderate light intensities. One promising platform to reach such strong light-matter interacting regimes is offered by polaritonic metasurfaces, which represent ultrathin artificial media structured on nano-scale and designed to support polaritons - half-light half-matter quasiparticles. Topological polaritons, or topolaritons, offer an ideal platform in this context, with unique properties stemming from topological phases of light strongly coupled with matter. Here we explore polaritonic metasurfaces based on 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) supporting in-plane polarized exciton resonances as a promising platform for topological polaritonics. We enable a spin-Hall topolaritonic phase by strongly coupling valley polarized in-plane excitons in a TMD monolayer with a suitably engineered all-dielectric topological photonic metasurface. We first show that the strong coupling between topological photonic bands supported by the metasurface and excitonic bands in MoSe2 yields an effective phase winding and transition to a topolaritonic spin-Hall state. We then experimentally realize this phenomenon and confirm the presence of one-way spin-polarized edge topolaritons. Combined with the valley polarization in a MoSe2 monolayer, the proposed system enables a new approach to engage the photonic angular momentum and valley degree of freedom in TMDs, offering a promising platform for photonic/solid-state interfaces for valleytronics and spintronics.
Weyl points are the simplest topologically-protected degeneracy in a three-dimensional dispersion relation. The realization of Weyl semimetals in photonic crystals has allowed these singularities and their consequences to be explored with electromagnetic waves. However, it is difficult to achieve nonlinearities in such systems. One promising approach is to use the strong-coupling of photons and excitons, because the resulting polaritons interact through their exciton component. Yet topological polaritons have only been realized in two dimensions. Here, we predict that the dispersion relation for polaritons in three dimensions, in a bulk semiconductor with an applied magnetic field, contains Weyl points and Weyl line nodes. We show that absorption converts these Weyl points to Weyl exceptional rings. We conclude that bulk semiconductors are a promising system in which to investigate topological photonics in three dimensions, and the effects of dissipation, gain, and nonlinearity.
We consider a hybrid structure formed by graphene and an insulating antiferromagnet, separated by a dielectric of thickness up to $dsimeq 500 ,nm$. When uncoupled, both graphene and the antiferromagnetic surface host their own polariton modes coupling the electromagnetic field with plasmons in the case of graphene, and with magnons in the case of the antiferromagnet. We show that the hybrid structure can host two new types of hybrid polariton modes. First, a surface magnon-plasmon polariton whose dispersion is radically changed by the carrier density of the graphene layer, including a change of sign in the group velocity. Second, a surface plasmon-magnon polariton formed as a linear superposition of graphene surface plasmon and the antiferromagnetic bare magnon. This polariton has a dispersion with two branches, formed by the anticrossing between the dispersive surface plasmon and the magnon. We discuss the potential these new modes have for combining photons, magnons, and plasmons to reach new functionalities.
Long-distance propagation of heat carriers is essential for efficient heat dissipation in microelectronics. However, in dielectric nanomaterials, the primary heat carriers - phonons - can propagate ballistically only for hundreds of nanometres, which limits their heat conduction efficiency. Theory predicts that surface phonon-polaritons (SPhPs) can overcome this limitation and conduct heat without dissipation for hundreds of micrometres. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate such long-distance heat transport by SPhPs. Using the 3$omega$ technique, we measure the in-plane thermal conductivity of SiN nanomembranes for different heater-sensor distances (100 and 200 $mu$m), membrane thicknesses (30 - 200 nm), and temperatures (300 - 400 K). We find that in contrast with thick membranes, thin nanomembranes support heat conduction by SPhPs, as evidenced by an increase in the thermal conductivity with temperature. Remarkably, the thermal conductivity measured 200 $mu$m away from the heater are consistently higher than that measured 100 $mu$m closer. This result suggests that heat conduction by SPhPs is quasi-ballistic over at least hundreds of micrometres. Thus, our findings show that SPhPs can enhance heat dissipation in polar nanomembranes and find applications in thermal management, near-field radiation, and polaritonics.