Observation of an unpaired photonic Dirac point

Gui-Geng Liu, Peiheng Zhou, Yihao Yang (), Haoran Xue, Xin Ren, Xiao Lin, Hong-xiang Sun, Lei Bi, Yidong Chong () and Baile Zhang ()
Additional contact information
Gui-Geng Liu: Nanyang Technological University
Peiheng Zhou: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Yihao Yang: Nanyang Technological University
Haoran Xue: Nanyang Technological University
Xin Ren: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Xiao Lin: Nanyang Technological University
Hong-xiang Sun: Jiangsu University
Lei Bi: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Yidong Chong: Nanyang Technological University
Baile Zhang: Nanyang Technological University

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract At photonic Dirac points, electromagnetic waves are governed by the same equations as two-component massless relativistic fermions. However, photonic Dirac points are known to occur in pairs in “photonic graphene” and other similar photonic crystals, which necessitates special precautions to excite only one valley state. Systems hosting unpaired photonic Dirac points are significantly harder to realize, as they require broken time-reversal symmetry. Here, we report on the observation of an unpaired Dirac point in a planar two-dimensional photonic crystal. The structure incorporates gyromagnetic materials, which break time-reversal symmetry; the unpaired Dirac point occurs when a parity-breaking parameter is fine-tuned to a topological transition between a photonic Chern insulator and a conventional photonic insulator phase. Evidence for the unpaired Dirac point is provided by transmission and field-mapping experiments, including a demonstration of strongly non-reciprocal reflection. This unpaired Dirac point may have applications in valley filters and angular selective photonic devices.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15801-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-15801-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15801-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().