Experimental observation of photonic nodal line degeneracies in metacrystals

Wenlong Gao, Biao Yang, Ben Tremain, Hongchao Liu, Qinghua Guo, Lingbo Xia, Alastair P. Hibbins () and Shuang Zhang ()
Additional contact information
Wenlong Gao: University of Birmingham
Biao Yang: University of Birmingham
Ben Tremain: University of Exeter
Hongchao Liu: University of Birmingham
Qinghua Guo: University of Birmingham
Lingbo Xia: University of Birmingham
Alastair P. Hibbins: Shenzhen University
Shuang Zhang: University of Birmingham

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Nodal line semimetals (NLS) are three-dimensional (3D) crystals that support band crossings in the form of one-dimensional rings in the Brillouin zone. In the presence of spin–orbit coupling or lowered crystal symmetry, NLS may transform into Dirac semimetals, Weyl semimetals, or 3D topological insulators. In the photonics context, despite the realization of topological phases, such as Chern insulators, topological insulators, Weyl, and Dirac degeneracies, no experimental demonstration of photonic nodal lines (NLs) has been reported so far. Here, we experimentally demonstrate NL degeneracies in microwave cut-wire metacrystals with engineered negative bulk plasma dispersion. Both the bulk and surface states of the NL metamaterial are observed through spatial Fourier transformations of the scanned near-field distributions. Furthermore, we theoretically show that the NL degeneracy can transform into two Weyl points when gyroelectric materials are incorporated into the metacrystal design. Our findings may inspire further advances in topological photonics.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03407-5 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:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-03407-5

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03407-5

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 ().