Gradient catastrophe of nonlinear photonic valley-Hall edge pulses

Smirnov, L. A.; Smolina, Ekaterina; Angelakis, Dimitris G.; Leykam, Daniel

doi:10.1103/physrevresearch.3.043027

Cited by 17 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Topological soliton-like edge states that radiate in the course of propagation have been observed [27] in Floquet topological insulators [28][29][30][31], while theory for envelope quasi-solitons built on edge states has been developed for discrete [32][33][34][35] and continuous [36][37][38][39]21] arrays of helical waveguides. Edge solitons may also form in waveguide arraybased valley Hall systems [40][41][42][43]; they were observed in truncated photonic graphene lattice induced in atomic vapors [44]. Recently nonlinear corner states were demonstrated in higher-order 2D topological photonic insulators [45,46].…”

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confidence: 99%

Observation of Edge Solitons in Topological Trimer Arrays

et al. 2022

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We report the experimental observation of nonlinear light localization and edge soliton formation at the edges of fs-laser written trimer waveguide arrays, where transition from non-topological to topological phases is controlled by the spacing between neighboring trimers. We found that, in the former regime, edge solitons occur only above a considerable power threshold, whereas in the latter one they bifurcate from linear states. Edge solitons are observed in a broad power range where their propagation constant falls into one of the topological gaps of the system, while partial delocalization is observed when considerable nonlinearity drives the propagation constant into an allowed band, causing coupling with bulk modes. Our results provide direct experimental evidence of the coexistence and selective excitation in the same or in different topological gaps of two types of topological edge solitons with different internal structures, which can rarely be observed even in nontopological systems. This also constitutes the first experimental evidence of formation of topological solitons in a nonlinear system with more than one topological gap.

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confidence: 99%

Observation of Edge Solitons in Topological Trimer Arrays

et al. 2022

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“…This symmetry breaking can be achieved, for example, by introducing different detuning into depths of lattice channels at both sides of the domain wall [53,54]. So far, only scalar bright and dark [35,36,37,56] or specific Dirac [57] edge solitons were encountered in valley Hall photonic systems. However, such systems may also offer unique conditions for realization of vector edge solitons, characterized by more than one components that simultaneously make their construction more challenging.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vector valley Hall edge solitons in superhoneycomb lattices

Tang,

Zhang,

Kartashov

et al. 2022

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Topological edge solitons that bifurcate and inherit topological protection from linear edge states and, therefore, demonstrate immunity to disorder and defects upon propagation, attract considerable attention in a rapidly growing field of topological photonics. Valley Hall systems are especially interesting from the point of view of realization of topological edge solitons because they do not require external or artificial magnetic fields or longitudinal modulations of the underlying potential for the emergence of the topological phases. Here we report on the diverse types of vector valley Hall edge solitons forming at the domain walls between superhoneycomb lattices, including bright-dipole, bright-tripole, dark-bright, and dark-dipole solitons. In contrast to conventional scalar topological solitons, such vector states can be constructed as envelope solitons on the edge states from different branches and with different Bloch momenta. Such vector solitons can be remarkably robust, they show stable long-distance propagation and can bypass sharp bends of the domain wall. The existence of the counter-propagating valley Hall edge solitons at the same domain wall allows us to study their structural robustness upon collisions that can be nearly elastic. Our results illustrate richness of soliton families in the valley Hall systems and open new prospects for the light field manipulation and design of the nonlinear topological functional devices.

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“…Many interesting phenomena mediated by the nonlinearity have been discovered in topological insulators. They include various bistability effects for edge states in pumped dissipative systems [42][43][44], modulational instabilities of the nonlinear edge states [45,46], stabilization of operation of topological lasers due to nonlinear gain saturation [47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54], nonlinearity-induced topological transitions [11], as well as rich variety of solitonic effects [55][56][57], including the formation of self-sustained localized states in the bulk of topological insulators [10,58], nonlinear vortices [59], topological edge solitons [60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71], or nonlinearity-induced higher-order topological phases [72], to name a few. Topological edge solitons were introduced as hybrid states that are affected by both the topological nature of the system and the nonlinear self-action.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Valley Hall edge solitons in a photonic graphene

et al. 2021

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We predict the existence and study properties of the valley Hall edge solitons in a composite photonic graphene with a domain wall between two honeycomb lattices with broken inversion symmetry. Inversion symmetry in our system is broken due to detuning introduced into constituent sublattices of the honeycomb structure. We show that nonlinear valley Hall edge states with sufficiently high amplitude bifurcating from the linear valley Hall edge state supported by the domain wall, can split into sets of bright spots due to development of the modulational instability, and that such an instability is a precursor for the formation of topological bright valley Hall edge solitons localized due to nonlinear self-action and travelling along the domain wall over large distances. Topological protection of the valley Hall edge solitons is demonstrated by modeling their passage through sharp corners of the Ω-shaped domain wall.

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Gradient catastrophe of nonlinear photonic valley-Hall edge pulses

Cited by 17 publications

References 60 publications

Observation of Edge Solitons in Topological Trimer Arrays

Observation of Edge Solitons in Topological Trimer Arrays

Vector valley Hall edge solitons in superhoneycomb lattices

Valley Hall edge solitons in a photonic graphene

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