Optical isolation with nonlinear topological photonics

Abstract

It is shown that the concept of topological phase transitions can be used to design nonlinear photonic structures exhibiting power thresholds and discontinuities in their transmittance. This provides a novel route to devising nonlinear optical isolators. We study three representative designs: (i) a waveguide array implementing a nonlinear 1D Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model, (ii) a waveguide array implementing a nonlinear 2D Haldane model, and (iii) a 2D lattice of coupled-ring waveguides. In the first two cases, we find a correspondence between the topological transition of the underlying linear lattice and the power threshold of the transmittance, and show that the transmission behavior is attributable to the emergence of a self-induced topological soliton. In the third case, we show that the topological transition produces a discontinuity in the transmittance curve, which can be exploited to achieve sharp jumps in the power-dependent isolation ratio.

11 pages, 7 figures

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• Topological Photonics
• Nonlinear topological photonics
• Observation and control of nonlinear electromagnetic topological edge states
• Controlling mass and energy diffusion with metamaterials
• Observation of Edge Solitons in Photonic Graphene
• Topologically Enhanced Harmonic Generation in a Nonlinear Transmission Line Metamaterial
• Reconfigurable topological phases in next-nearest-neighbor coupled resonator lattices
• Nontrivial coupling of light into a defect: the interplay of nonlinearity and topology
• Topological edge states and gap solitons in the nonlinear Dirac model
• Amplitude-dependent topological edge states in nonlinear phononic lattices
• Nonlinearity induced topological physics in momentum space and real space
• Nonlinear non-Hermitian higher-order topological laser
• Topological Invariant and Anomalous Edge Modes of Strongly Nonlinear Systems
• Dynamical nonlinear higher-order non-Hermitian skin effects and topological trap-skin phase
• Topological insulators in longitudinally driven waveguides: Lieb and Kagome lattices
• Effect of photonic spin-orbit coupling on the topological edge modes of a Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chain
• Programmable high-dimensional Hamiltonian in a photonic waveguide array
• Nonlinearity-induced transition in nonlinear Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model and nonlinear higher-order topological system
• An operator-based approach to topological photonics
• The role of nonlinearities in topological protection: using magnetically coupled fidget spinners
• Ring Dirac Solitons in Nonlinear Topological Lattices
• General corner states in 2D SSH model with intracelluar next-nearest-neighbour hopping
• Dynamically Emerging Topological Phase Transitions in Nonlinear Interacting Soliton Lattices
• Percolation-induced PT symmetry breaking
• Probing topology in nonlinear topological materials using numerical $K$-theory
• Tutorial: Classifying Photonic Topology Using the Spectral Localizer and Numerical $K$-Theory
• Non-Hermitian CT-Symmetric Spectral Protection of Nonlinear Defect Modes
• Breakdown of quantization in nonlinear Thouless pumping
• Optical control of topological end states via soliton formation in a 1D lattice
• Chiral edge soliton in nonlinear Chern systems
• Topology with memory in nonlinear driven-dissipative photonic lattices
• PC-symmetry-protected edge states in interacting driven-dissipative bosonic systems
• Nonlinear topological phase diagram in dimerized sine-Gordon model
• Supersymmetric non-Hermitian topological interface laser
• Topological interface states mediated by spontaneous symmetry breaking
• Nonlinearity and Topology
• Nonlinear dynamics of topological helicity wave in a frustrated skyrmion string
• Nonadiabatic nonlinear non-Hermitian quantized pumping
• Floquet valley Hall edge solitons
• Topological characteristics of gap closing points in nonlinear Weyl semimetals
• Mode Delocalization in Disordered Photonic Chern Insulator
• Asymmetric topological pumping in nonparaxial photonics
• Nonlinear topological Toda quasicrystal
• Self-induced nonreciprocity from asymmetric photonic topological insulators
• Non-Linear Interference Challenging Topological Protection of Chiral Edge States
• Anti-parity-time topologically undefined state
• Quantum transport in nonlinear Rudner-Levitov models
• Nonlinear dynamical topological phases in Cooper-pair box array
• Chiral solitary waves in a nonlinear topological insulator model
• Nonreciprocity Induced Fractional Nonlinear Thouless Pumping