We introduce the concept of adiabatic topological photonic structures, which allows us to overcome many of the limitations of topological photonic metasurfaces. We demonstrate that topological metasurfaces with slowly varying gauge fields significantly improve trapping of optical modes, and also offer excellent guiding features in both spin-Hall and valley-Hall topological photonic structures. Adiabatic variation of the mass terms at the domain walls makes topological boundary modes less sensitive to details of the lattice, perceiving the structure as an effectively homogeneous Dirac metasurface. As the result, the modes exhibit longer radiative lifetime and propagation distance, while retaining their topological resilience. At the same time, localized modes trapped due to the 2D variation of the mass term exhibit high quality factors and controllable radiative properties, which, along with non-zero angular momentum of their far field, makes them of great interest for applications.
We report novel phonon-polariton states induced by spatial defects in topological metasurface integrated with hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). The introduction of topological defects, created by stitching domains with different choices of unit cells leads to the emergence of spatially localized modes, while the coupling of these trapped modes with phonons in hBN gives rise to the formation of polaritonic states. We designed and fabricated a mid-IR-operating hybrid system that consists of a photonic metasurface with a thin layer of hBN on top of it. Topological defect modes of the fabricated structure were probed using direct imaging in both real- and Fourier-space.
We have designed and experimentally realized a polaritonic topological insulator based on bulk transition metal dichalcogenide crystals (TMDC, ~40nm-thick WS2 film). We have demonstrated that due to their high refractive index and the presence of exciton modes in the optical range, they represent an excellent platform for topological polaritonics, offering both excellent confinement and strong light-matter interactions in a single material. The successful patterning of TMDC into the topological crystal was demonstrated and emergence of the topological polaritonic boundary modes was directly confirmed by the back focal plane imaging and real space imaging techniques.
Strong light-matter coupling enabled polariton states were extensively exploited for enhanced optical nonlinearities, development of low threshold lasers and quantum simulators. Here, we will report our recent work on demonstration of novel topological polaritonic phases by leveraging the strong coupling between the photonic topological boundary states and two different material degrees of freedom in 2D Van der Waals materials; first transverse optical phonons in a hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) thin film and second excitons in 2D WSe2 monolayer. Our results will demonstrate emergence of topological boundary states of phonon-polariton and exciton-polariton character, and their resilient unidirectional propagation around sharp corner with avoided backscattering.
Here we directly emulate a two-dimensional Dirac equation with a position-dependent mass term in a photonic crystal and present a new type of photonic resonators with light confinement originating in relativistic Dirac physics. Some of the modes of such resonators represent eigenmodes of a supersymmetric Hamiltonian. To test our concept, we designed, fabricated, and studied a resonator operating in the mid-IR region. Direct imaging of the structure in both real and Fourier spaces confirmed existence of the modes. The demonstrated approach offers a new route for designing photonic devices and probing supersymmetric quantum physics by using a classical photonic platform.
We demonstrate the emergence of a new class of guided modes in photonic metasurfaces with a gradient change of mass term across boundary between topological and trivial domains. These modes possess spin degeneracy and exhibit splitting in their quality factors due to spin-dependent radiative losses. In experiment we probe our spin-full guided modes by selectively exciting them with circularly polarized light of opposite handedness and we confirm significant difference in the radiative losses for selected k-vectors. Metasurfaces supporting these modes can be used for spin-full waveguiding and can find applications in integrated photonics due to the possibility of spin multiplexing.
In this work we propose a method to achieve improved topological edge sates by engineering an optimal profile of the transition at the boundary between topological and trivial domains. From experiment and simulation results we confirmed that the quality factor of edge state for smooth transition profile can be increased by more than an order compared to the edge state of a conventional step profile. At the same time the modes retained their topological resilience, which, when combined with the reduced radiative leakage, enables robust photonic transport over long distances even above the light line.
We report novel topological polaritonic states of half-light and half-phonon character in a topological mid-infrared metasurface integrating hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). A custom-built Fourier-space imaging microscope was used to investigate a three-dimensional band diagram of the photonic topological phonon-polaritonic states in our system for the first time. Our Fourier- and real-space imaging experimental findings, supported by theoretical models, demonstrate that topological properties of photonic modes are transcribed to the in-plane lattice vibrations (phonons) supported by hBN. As a result, the observed topological phonon-polaritons exhibit unidirectional propagation with the helical nature of vibrations and the resilience of the modes to sharp bends.
The WS2 monolayer encapsulated in two thin hBN layers was pumped at room temperature by a circularly polarized laser in order to excite one of the valleys (K or K’ valley). The refractivity spectra measured using both left- and right- CP probe with low intensity, revealed the nonreciprocal response at exciton resonance wavelength. Based on this effect, we propose a novel design of an isolator containing SiN ring resonator integrating an asymmetrically places WS2 monolayer. By applying the coupled mode theory and parameter extracted from the experiment, the isolation of the device was estimated to be ~20dB.
In this work we design and experimentally realize a photonic kagome metasurface exhibiting a Wannier-type higher-order topological phase. We demonstrate and visualize the emergence of a topological transition and opening of a Dirac cone by directly exciting the bulk modes of the HOTI metasurface via solid-state immersion spectroscopy. The open nature of the metasurface is then utilized to directly image topological boundary states. We show that, while the domain walls host 1D edge states, their bending induces 0D higher-order topological modes confined to the corners. The demonstrated metasurface hosting topological boundary modes of different dimensionality paves the way to a new generation of universal and resilient optical devices which can controllably scatter, trap and guide optical fields in a robust way.
Huge confinement of light over micro and nano structures is finding various applications in the field of
photonics. In this letter the results obtained over two different kinds of confined structures viz., (i) Metallo-Dielectric
colloidal structures (MDCS), obtained by immobilization of metallic gold (Au) nanoparticles on the dielectric silica
network of inverse silica opal matrix and (ii) Rare-earth activated silica-hafnia film coated silica microresonator is
presented in detail. The structural, optical and spectroscopic assessments of these systems are giving an evidence to have
applications in the field of sensing and lasing.
Preliminary results on MDCS used as surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate shows an evidence
that an increase of the Raman signal with respect to that observed for other metallic and dielectric structures.
We report the angle dependent transmission spectral characteristics of 331 nm diameter polystyrene (PS) photonic
crystals (PhCs) with large band gap depth and steeper band edges which allow one to identify different Bragg planes
promptly. The spectral characteristics recorded in the clock-wise (CW) and anti clock-wise (ACW) directions follow the
LK and LU paths in the first Brillouin zone (FBZ) of the face centered cubic (fcc) structure. We obtained 25% of the
band gap depth for (220) plane in the LK path, which is the highest value reported till now to the best of our knowledge.
Interestingly we observed that (200) plane features for lower angles and (111) plane features for higher angles in the LU
path while in the LK path the dips follow the (111) plane fit completely from lower angles to higher angle of incidence
and the possible reasons are discussed.
We report on the fabrication and characterization of metallo-dielectric colloidal structures (MDCS) based on the
realization of inverse silica opals and following attachment of gold nanoparticles on the silica network of the inverse
structure. In particular we present the protocols developed for the realization of both inverse silica opals and gold
nanoparticles together with the procedure used for the immobilization of the metallic nanoparticles on the silica network.
Contact angle measurements evidenced a modification in term of wettability of the surface after gold immobilization
process. Optical measurements showed that MDCS have unique optical properties that combine the localized surface
plasmon resonance of single Au nanoparticles with the photonic band gap features of colloidal crystal structure.
Preliminary results on MDCS used as SERS substrate evidenced an increase of the Raman signal in respect to others
metallic structures used as comparison.
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