Topological pumping over a photonic Fibonacci quasicrystal

Abstract

Quasiperiodic lattices have recently been shown to be a nontrivial topological phase of matter. Charge pumping—one of the hallmarks of topological states of matter—was recently realized for photons in a one-dimensional off-diagonal Harper model implemented in a photonic waveguide array. However, if the relationship between topological pumps and quasiperiodic systems is generic, one might wonder how to observe it in the canonical and most studied quasicrystalline system in one dimension—the Fibonacci chain. This chain is expected to facilitate a similar phenomenon, yet its discrete nature hinders the experimental study of such topological effects. Here, we overcome this obstacle by utilizing the topological equivalence of a family of quasiperiodic models which ranges from the Fibonacci chain to the Harper model. Implemented in photonic waveguide arrays, we observe the topological properties of this family, and perform a topological pumping of photons across a Fibonacci chain.