Experimental observation of anomalous topological edge modes in a slowly driven photonic lattice

Sebabrata Mukherjee (), Alexander Spracklen (), Manuel Valiente, Erika Andersson, Patrik Öhberg, Nathan Goldman and Robert R. Thomson
Additional contact information
Sebabrata Mukherjee: Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences (IPaQS), Heriot-Watt University
Alexander Spracklen: Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences (IPaQS), Heriot-Watt University
Manuel Valiente: Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences (IPaQS), Heriot-Watt University
Erika Andersson: Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences (IPaQS), Heriot-Watt University
Patrik Öhberg: Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences (IPaQS), Heriot-Watt University
Nathan Goldman: Center for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Robert R. Thomson: Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences (IPaQS), Heriot-Watt University

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Topological quantum matter can be realized by subjecting engineered systems to time-periodic modulations. In analogy with static systems, periodically driven quantum matter can be topologically classified by topological invariants, whose non-zero value guarantees the presence of robust edge modes. In the high-frequency limit of the drive, topology is described by standard topological invariants, such as Chern numbers. Away from this limit, these topological numbers become irrelevant, and novel topological invariants must be introduced to capture topological edge transport. The corresponding edge modes were coined anomalous topological edge modes, to highlight their intriguing origin. Here we demonstrate the experimental observation of these topological edge modes in a 2D photonic lattice, where these propagating edge states are shown to coexist with a quasi-localized bulk. Our work opens an exciting route for the exploration of topological physics in time-modulated systems operating away from the high-frequency regime.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13918 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:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms13918

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

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13918

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 ().