Probing topological protection using a designer surface plasmon structure
Name
Probing Topological Protection.pdf
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2.42 MB
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Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Gao, Fei
Gao, Zhen
Shi, Xihang
Yang, Zhaoju
Lin, Xiao
Xu, Hongyi
Joannopoulos, John
Soljacic, Marin
Chen, Hongsheng
Lu, Ling
Date Issued
May 2016
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Gao, Fei, Zhen Gao, Xihang Shi, Zhaoju Yang, Xiao Lin, Hongyi Xu, John D. Joannopoulos, et al. “Probing Topological Protection Using a Designer Surface Plasmon Structure.” Nat Comms 7 (May 20, 2016): 11619.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Topological photonic states, inspired by robust chiral edge states in topological insulators, have recently been demonstrated in a few photonic systems, including an array of coupled on-chip ring resonators at communication wavelengths. However, the intrinsic difference between electrons and photons determines that the ‘topological protection’ in time-reversal-invariant photonic systems does not share the same robustness as its counterpart in electronic topological insulators. Here in a designer surface plasmon platform consisting of tunable metallic sub-wavelength structures, we construct photonic topological edge states and probe their robustness against a variety of defect classes, including some common time-reversal-invariant photonic defects that can break the topological protection, but do not exist in electronic topological insulators. This is also an experimental realization of anomalous Floquet topological edge states, whose topological phase cannot be predicted by the usual Chern number topological invariants.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11619
