Bound vortex light in an emulated topological defect in photonic lattices

Abstract

Topology have prevailed in a variety of branches of physics. And topological defects in cosmology are speculated akin to dislocation or disclination in solids or liquid crystals. With the development of classical and quantum simulation, such speculative topological defects are well-emulated in a variety of condensed matter systems. Especially, the underlying theoretical foundations can be extensively applied to realize novel optical applications. Here, with the aid of transformation optics, we experimentally demonstrated bound vortex light on optical chips by simulating gauge fields of topological linear defects in cosmology through position-dependent coupling coefficients in a deformed photonic graphene. Furthermore, these types of photonic lattices inspired by topological linear defects can simultaneously generate and transport optical vortices, and even can control the orbital angular momentum of photons on integrated optical chips.

1D Photonic Topological Insulators Composed of Split Ring Resonators: A Mini Review

“…However, despite active efforts in implanting photonic devices with topological protection in a simple dimer chain with SRRs, applications of other topological structures remain almost uncharted. Recently, research has been stimulated by theoretical predictions and experimental observations of novel effects such as topological defects, [466,467] Möbius insulators, [468,469] non-Euclidean topology, [470,471] vortex topological modes, [472,473] and topological rainbows. [474,475] In the coming years, we expect to discover the new topological structures and novel topological phenomena with SRRs.…”

Observation of a Photonic Orbital Gauge Field

“…[34,35] In integrated photonic devices, rotational structures are often designed to generate and transmit vortex states. [36][37][38] The preserved rotational symmetries at disclinations in topological lattices make it advantageous to confine vortex states. [39,40] In contrast to the topological insulator dependent on Dirac spinors, a gauge field operating on orbital modes has more powerful capacity of controlling high-dimensional quantum states, which will play a key role in the orbital photonics.…”