Direct Observation of Topology from Single-photon Dynamics on a Photonic Chip

Abstract

Topology manifesting in many branches of physics deepens our understanding on state of matters. Topological photonics has recently become a rapidly growing field since artificial photonic structures can be well designed and constructed to support topological states, especially a promising large-scale implementation of these states using photonic chips. Meanwhile, due to the inapplicability of Hall conductance to photons, it is still an elusive problem to directly measure the integer topological invariants and topological phase transitions for photons. Here, we present a direct observation of topological winding numbers by using bulk-state photon dynamics on a chip. Furthermore, we for the first time experimentally observe the topological phase transition points via single-photon dynamics. The integrated topological structures, direct measurement in the single-photon regime and strong robustness against disorder add the key elements into the toolbox of `quantum topological photonics' and may enable topologically protected quantum information processing in large scale.

arXiv comment7 pages, 4 figures, comments welcome

References in corpus (36)

• Topological Insulators
• Topological insulators and superconductors
• Topological Photonics
• Topological Photonics
• Photonic Floquet Topological Insulators
• Possible Realization of Directional Optical Waveguides in Photonic Crystals with Broken Time-Reversal Symmetry
• Photonic Analogue of Two-dimensional Topological Insulators and Helical One-Way Edge Transport in Bi-Anisotropic Metamaterials
• Imaging topological edge states in silicon photonics
• Robust optical delay lines via topological protection
• Topological States and Adiabatic Pumping in Quasicrystals
• Experimental observation of Weyl points
• Direct Measurement of the Zak phase in Topological Bloch Bands
• Probing topological invariants in the bulk of a non-Hermitian optical system
• Experimental boson sampling in arbitrary integrated photonic circuits
• Observation of topologically protected bound states in a one dimensional photonic system
• Exploring Topological Phases With Quantum Walks
• Experimental reconstruction of the Berry curvature in a topological Bloch band
• Topological Transition in a Non-Hermitian Quantum Walk
• Observation of the topological Anderson insulator in disordered atomic wires
• Detection of Zak phases and topological invariants in a chiral quantum walk of twisted photons
• Experimental observation of optical Weyl points
• Topological quantum matter with cold atoms
• Topological creation and destruction of edge states in photonic graphene
• Experimental Two-dimensional Quantum Walk on a Photonic Chip
• Experimental Measurement of the Berry Curvature from Anomalous Transport
• Measurement of topological invariants in a 2D photonic system
• Floquet topological transitions in a driven one-dimensional topological insulator
• Dynamical moments reveal a topological quantum transition in a photonic quantum walk
• Quantum interference of topological states of light
• Anomalous and Quantum Hall Effects in Lossy Photonic Lattices
• Experimental Quantum Fast Hitting on Hexagonal Graphs
• Measuring topological invariants in photonic systems
• Tuneable quantum interference in a 3D integrated circuit
• Impact of loss on the wave dynamics in photonic waveguide lattices
• Phase spectroscopy of topological invariants in photonic crystals
• Parity-Induced Thermalization Gap in Disordered Ring Lattices

Cited by in corpus (33)

• Interplay of non-Hermitian skin effects and Anderson localization in non-reciprocal quasiperiodic lattices
• Low-threshold topological nanolasers based on second-order corner state
• Femtosecond laser micromachining for integrated quantum photonics
• Experimentally Detecting Quantized Zak Phases without Chiral Symmetry in Photonic Lattices
• Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics with Second-Order Topological Corner State
• Measuring a Dynamical Topological Order Parameter in Quantum Walks
• Non-abelian Thouless pumping in a photonic lattice
• Dissipative Topological Phase Transition with Strong System-Environment Coupling
• Topological supermodes in photonic crystal fiber
• Probing bulk topological invariants using leaky photonic lattices
• Digital Simulation of Topological Matter on Programmable Quantum Processors
• Topologically Enabled Ultralarge Purcell Enhancement Robust to Photon Scattering
• Measuring topological invariants in polaritonic graphene
• Bulk detection of time-dependent topological transitions in quenched chiral models
• Biphoton entanglement of topologically-distinct modes
• Persistence of Topological Phases in Non-Hermitian Quantum Walks
• Probing multi-mobility edges in quasiperiodic mosaic lattices
• Topological quantum walks: theory and experiments
• Quantum phase transition in a non-Hermitian XY spin chain with global complex transverse field
• Probing Bulk Band Topology from Time Boundary Effect in Synthetic Dimension
• Detecting topology through dynamics in interacting fermionic wires
• Observing Movement of Dirac Cones from Single-Photon Dynamics
• Probing Chiral-Symmetric Higher-Order Topological Insulators with Multipole Winding Number
• Wave-packet spreading in the disordered and nonlinear Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chain
• Experimental Quantum Simulation of Dynamic Localization on Curved Photonic Lattices
• Identifying topology of leaky photonic lattices with machine learning
• Multiparticle quantum walk: a dynamical probe of topological many-body excitations
• Topological aspects in nonlinear optical frequency conversion
• Single-shot measurement of photonic topological invariant
• A comprehensive study on beam dynamics inside symmetrically chirped waveguide array mimicking the graded index media
• Digital Quantum Simulation of Floquet Topological Phases with a Solid-State Quantum Simulator
• Topologically protected long-range coherent energy transfer
• Topologically protected strong coupling and entanglement between distant quantum emitters