Cubic 3D Chern photonic insulators with orientable large Chern vectors

Abstract

Time Reversal Symmetry (TRS) broken topological phases provide gapless surface states protected by topology, regardless of additional internal symmetries, spin or valley degrees of freedom. Despite the numerous demonstrations of 2D topological phases, few examples of 3D topological systems with TRS breaking exist. In this article, we devise a general strategy to design 3D Chern insulating (3D CI) cubic photonic crystals in a weakly TRS broken environment with orientable and arbitrarly large Chern vectors. The designs display topologically protected chiral and unidirectional surface states with disjoint equifrequency loops. The resulting crystals present the following novel characteristics: First, by increasing the Chern number, multiple surface states channels can be supported. Second, the Chern vector can be oriented along any direction simply changing the magnetization axis, opening up larger 3D CI/3D CI interfacing possibilities as compared to 2D. Third, by lowering the TRS breaking requirements, the system is ideal for realistic photonic applications where the magnetic response is weak.

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• Observation of Weyl point pair annihilation in a gyromagnetic photonic crystal
• A brief review of topological photonics in one, two, and three dimensions
• Multifrequency and multimode topological waveguides in a Stampfli-triangle photonic crystal with large valley Chern numbers
• Fermi arc reconstruction in synthetic photonic lattice
• Wannier Function Methods for Topological Modes in 1D Photonic Crystals
• Chiral photonic topological states in Penrose quasicrystals
• Probing and harnessing photonic Fermi arc surface states using light-matter interactions
• Transversality-Enforced Tight-Binding Models for 3D Photonic Crystals aided by Topological Quantum Chemistry
• Floquet-Engineering Weyl Points and Linked Fermi Arcs from Straight Nodal Lines
• Self-induced nonreciprocity from asymmetric photonic topological insulators
• Observation of Embedded Topology in a Trivial Bulk via Projective Crystal Symmetry
• Long-range interactions in Weyl dense atomic arrays protected from dissipation and disorder