Photonic topological insulator induced by a dislocation in three dimensions

Eran Lustig, Lukas J. Maczewsky, Julius Beck, Tobias Biesenthal, Matthias Heinrich, Zhaoju Yang, Yonatan Plotnik, Alexander Szameit and Mordechai Segev ()
Additional contact information
Eran Lustig: Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
Lukas J. Maczewsky: Universität Rostock
Julius Beck: Universität Rostock
Tobias Biesenthal: Universität Rostock
Matthias Heinrich: Universität Rostock
Zhaoju Yang: Zhejiang University
Yonatan Plotnik: Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
Alexander Szameit: Universität Rostock
Mordechai Segev: Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Nature, 2022, vol. 609, issue 7929, 931-935

Abstract: Abstract The hallmark of topological insulators (TIs) is the scatter-free propagation of waves in topologically protected edge channels1. This transport is strictly chiral on the outer edge of the medium and therefore capable of bypassing sharp corners and imperfections, even in the presence of substantial disorder. In photonics, two-dimensional (2D) topological edge states have been demonstrated on several different platforms2–4 and are emerging as a promising tool for robust lasers5, quantum devices6–8 and other applications. More recently, 3D TIs were demonstrated in microwaves9 and acoustic waves10–13, where the topological protection in the latter is induced by dislocations. However, at optical frequencies, 3D photonic TIs have so far remained out of experimental reach. Here we demonstrate a photonic TI with protected topological surface states in three dimensions. The topological protection is enabled by a screw dislocation. For this purpose, we use the concept of synthetic dimensions14–17 in a 2D photonic waveguide array18 by introducing a further modal dimension to transform the system into a 3D topological system. The lattice dislocation endows the system with edge states propagating along 3D trajectories, with topological protection akin to strong photonic TIs19,20. Our work paves the way for utilizing 3D topology in photonic science and technology.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05129-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nature:v:609:y:2022:i:7929:d:10.1038_s41586-022-05129-7

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05129-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

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