Liquid-crystal-based topological photonics

Abstract

Topological photonics harnesses the physics of topological insulators to control the behavior of light. Photonic modes robust against material imperfections are an example of such control. In this work, we propose a soft-matter platform based on nematic liquid crystals that supports photonic topological insulators. The orientation of liquid crystal molecules introduces an extra geometric degree of freedom which in conjunction with suitably designed structural properties, leads to the creation of topologically protected states of light. The use of soft building blocks potentially allows for reconfigurable systems that exploit the interplay between light and the soft responsive medium.

5 pages, 3 figures + SI

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Topological metasurface: From passive toward active and beyond
• Waveguiding driven by the Pancharatnam-Berry phase
• Optical Thouless pumping transport and nonlinear switching in a topological low-dimensional discrete nematic liquid crystal array
• Bidirectional deep learning of polarization transfer in liquid crystals with application to quantum state preparation
• Single-shot measurement of photonic topological invariant