Topological photonics is a rapidly emerging field of research in which geometrical and topological ideas are exploited to design and control the behavior of light. Drawing inspiration from the discovery of the quantum Hall effects and topological insulators in condensed matter, recent advances have shown how to engineer analogous effects also for photons, leading to remarkable phenomena such as the robust unidirectional propagation of light, which hold great promise for applications. Thanks to the flexibility and diversity of photonics systems, this field is also opening up new opportunities to realize exotic topological models and to probe and exploit topological effects in new ways. This article reviews experimental and theoretical developments in topological photonics across a wide range of experimental platforms, including photonic crystals, waveguides, metamaterials, cavities, optomechanics, silicon photonics, and circuit QED. A discussion of how changing the dimensionality and symmetries of photonics systems has allowed for the realization of different topological phases is offered, and progress in understanding the interplay of topology with non-Hermitian effects, such as dissipation, is reviewed. As an exciting perspective, topological photonics can be combined with optical nonlinearities, leading toward new collective phenomena and novel strongly correlated states of light, such as an analog of the fractional quantum Hall effect.

Topological Photonics

Topological insulators are a new phase of matter, with the striking property that conduction of electrons occurs only on their surfaces. In two dimensions, electrons on the surface of a topological insulator are not scattered despite defects and disorder, providing robustness akin to that of superconductors. Topological insulators are predicted to have wide-ranging applications in fault-tolerant quantum computing and spintronics. Substantial effort has been directed towards realizing topological insulators for electromagnetic waves. One-dimensional systems with topological edge states have been demonstrated, but these states are zero-dimensional and therefore exhibit no transport properties. Topological protection of microwaves has been observed using a mechanism similar to the quantum Hall effect, by placing a gyromagnetic photonic crystal in an external magnetic field. But because magnetic effects are very weak at optical frequencies, realizing photonic topological insulators with scatter-free edge states requires a fundamentally different mechanism-one that is free of magnetic fields. A number of proposals for photonic topological transport have been put forward recently. One suggested temporal modulation of a photonic crystal, thus breaking time-reversal symmetry and inducing one-way edge states. This is in the spirit of the proposed Floquet topological insulators, in which temporal variations in solid-state systems induce topological edge states. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a photonic topological insulator free of external fields and with scatter-free edge transport-a photonic lattice exhibiting topologically protected transport of visible light on the lattice edges. Our system is composed of an array of evanescently coupled helical waveguides arranged in a graphene-like honeycomb lattice. Paraxial diffraction of light is described by a Schrodinger equation where the propagation coordinate (z) acts as 'time'. Thus the helicity of the waveguides breaks z-reversal symmetry as proposed for Floquet topological insulators. This structure results in one-way edge states that are topologically protected from scattering.

Photonic Floquet topological insulators

The concept of parity-time symmetric systems is rooted in non-Hermitian quantum mechanics where complex potentials obeying this symmetry could exhibit real spectra. The concept has applications in many fields of physics, e.g., in optics, metamaterials, acoustics, Bose-Einstein condensation, electronic circuitry, etc. The inclusion of nonlinearity has led to a number of new phenomena for which no counterparts exist in traditional dissipative systems. Several examples of nonlinear parity-time symmetric systems in different physical disciplines are presented and their implications discussed.

Nonlinear waves in PT -symmetric systems

In the preceding chapters with few exceptions we studied systems at equilibrium. This means that the systems do not change or evolve over time.

Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics

The field of nonlinear dispersive waves has developed enormously since the work of Stokes, Boussinesq and Korteweg–de Vries (KdV) in the nineteenth century. In the 1960s, researchers developed effective asymptotic methods for deriving nonlinear wave equations, such as the KdV equation, governing a broad class of physical phenomena that admit special solutions including those commonly known as solitons. This book describes the underlying approximation techniques and methods for finding solutions to these and other equations. The concepts and methods covered include wave dispersion, asymptotic analysis, perturbation theory, the method of multiple scales, deep and shallow water waves, nonlinear optics including fiber optic communications, mode-locked lasers and dispersion-managed wave phenomena. Most chapters feature exercise sets, making the book suitable for advanced courses or for self-directed learning. Graduate students and researchers will find this an excellent entry to a thriving area at the intersection of applied mathematics, engineering and physical science.

Nonlinear Dispersive Waves: Asymptotic Analysis and Solitons

Pseudospin, an additional degree of freedom inherent in graphene, plays a key role in understanding many fundamental phenomena such as the anomalous quantum Hall effect, electron chirality and Klein paradox. Unlike the electron spin, the pseudospin was traditionally considered as an unmeasurable quantity, immune to Stern-Gerlach-type experiments. Recently, however, it has been suggested that graphene pseudospin is a real angular momentum that might manifest itself as an observable quantity, but so far direct tests of such a momentum remained unfruitful. Here, by selective excitation of two sublattices of an artificial photonic graphene, we demonstrate pseudospin-mediated vortex generation and topological charge flipping in otherwise uniform optical beams with Bloch momentum traversing through the Dirac points. Corroborated by numerical solutions of the linear massless Dirac-Weyl equation, we show that pseudospin can turn into orbital angular momentum completely, thus upholding the belief that pseudospin is not merely for theoretical elegance but rather physically measurable.

Unveiling pseudospin and angular momentum in photonic graphene

PT symmetry in a fractional Schrödinger equation

Conical diffraction in honeycomb lattices is analyzed. This phenomenon arises in nonlinear Schr\"odinger equations with honeycomb lattice potentials. In the tight-binding approximation the wave envelope is governed by a nonlinear classical Dirac equation. Numerical simulations show that the Dirac equation and the lattice equation have the same conical diffraction properties. Similar conical diffraction occurs in both the linear and nonlinear regimes. The Dirac system reveals the underlying mechanism for the existence of conical diffraction in honeycomb lattices.

Conical diffraction in honeycomb lattices

We investigate the fractional Schr\"odinger equation with a periodic $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric potential. In the inverse space, the problem transfers into a first-order nonlocal frequency-delay partial differential equation. We show that at a critical point, the band structure becomes linear and symmetric in the one-dimensional case, which results in a nondiffracting propagation and conical diffraction of input beams. If only one channel in the periodic potential is excited, adjacent channels become uniformly excited along the propagation direction, which can be used to generate laser beams of high power and narrow width. In the two-dimensional case, there appears conical diffraction that depends on the competition between the fractional Laplacian operator and the $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric potential. This investigation may find applications in novel on-chip optical devices.

$\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry in a fractional Schr\"odinger equation

The linear spectrum and corresponding Bloch modes of shallow honeycomb lattices near Dirac points are investigated. Via perturbation theory, the dispersion relation is found to have threefold degeneracy at leading order with eigenvalue splitting at the following two orders; i.e., the threefold eigenvalue splits into single and double values. Multiscale perturbation methods are employed to describe the nonlinear dynamics of the associated wave envelopes. The dynamics of the envelope depends on different asymptotic balances whereupon a three-level nonlinear Dirac-type equation or a two-level nonlinear Dirac equation is derived. The analysis agrees well with direct numerical simulations.

Yi Zhu

Papers

Unveiling pseudospin and angular momentum in photonic graphene

PT symmetry in a fractional Schrödinger equation

Conical diffraction in honeycomb lattices

$\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry in a fractional Schr\"odinger equation

Nonlinear Waves in Shallow Honeycomb Lattices