Selective enhancement of topologically induced interface states in a dielectric resonator chain

Abstract

The recent realization of topological phases in insulators and superconductors has advanced the quest for robust quantum technologies. The prospects to implement the underlying topological features controllably has given incentive to explore optical platforms for analogous realizations. Here we realize a topologically induced defect state in a chain of dielectric microwave resonators and show that the functionality of the system can be enhanced by supplementing topological protection with non-hermitian symmetries that do not have an electronic counterpart. We draw on a characteristic topological feature of the defect state, namely, that it breaks a sublattice symmetry. This isolates the state from losses that respect parity-time symmetry, which enhances its visibility relative to all other states both in the frequency and in the time domain. This mode selection mechanism naturally carries over to a wide range of topological and parity-time symmetric optical platforms, including couplers, rectifiers and lasers.

5 pages, 4 figures, + supplementary information (3 pages, 4 figures)

References in corpus (6)

• Topological Photonics
• Photonic Analogue of Two-dimensional Topological Insulators and Helical One-Way Edge Transport in Bi-Anisotropic Metamaterials
• PT-symmetry breaking and laser-absorber modes in optical scattering systems
• Topological Transition in a Non-Hermitian Quantum Walk
• PT-Symmetric Talbot Effects
• Parity anomaly and Landau-level lasing in strained photonic honeycomb lattices

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Topological Photonics
• Topological collective plasmons in bipartite chains of metallic nanoparticles
• Symmetry-protected zero-mode laser with a tunable spatial profile
• Topologically protected localised states in spin chains
• Non-Hermiticity-Induced Wave Confinement and Guiding in Loss-Gain-Loss Three-Layer Systems
• Relativistic Zitterbewegung in non-Hermitian photonic waveguide systems