Topological supermodes in photonic crystal fiber

Abstract

Topological states enable robust transport within disorder-rich media through integer invariants inextricably tied to the transmission of light, sound, or electrons. However, the challenge remains to exploit topological protection in a length-scalable platform such as optical fibre. We demonstrate, through both modelling and experiment, optical fibre that hosts topological supermodes across multiple light-guiding cores. We directly measure the photonic winding-number invariant characterising the bulk and observe topological guidance of visible light over metre length scales. Furthermore, the mechanical flexibility of fibre allows us to reversibly reconfigure the topological state. As the fibre is bent, we find that the edge states first lose their localization and then become relocalised due to disorder. We envision fibre as a scalable platform to explore and exploit topological effects in photonic networks.

18 pages, including 12 figures. See https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXM8aFxQnwl_CKkgFskkeVhmCDvVR6od- for Supplementary Videos

References in corpus (10)

• Photonic Analogue of Two-dimensional Topological Insulators and Helical One-Way Edge Transport in Bi-Anisotropic Metamaterials
• Analogs of quantum Hall effect edge states in photonic crystals
• Photonic topological pumping through the edges of a dynamical four-dimensional quantum Hall system
• Quantum electrodynamics in a topological waveguide
• Universal optical amplification without nonlinearity
• Dirac-vortex topological photonic crystal fibre
• Topological photonic crystal fibers based on second-order corner modes
• Hybrid topological guiding mechanisms for photonic crystal fibers
• Persistence of chirality in the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model in the presence of on-site disorder
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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Topologically protected vortex transport via chiral-symmetric disclination
• Topological Phases of Tight-Binding Trimer Lattice in the BDI Symmetry Class
• Probing the Topological Anderson Transition in Quasiperiodic Photonic Lattices via Chiral Displacement and Wavelength Tuning
• Emergence of Cascading Flat Bands in Breathing Superlattices
• Intensity Correlation Measurement to Simulate Two-body BICs and Probe Nonlinear Discrete Breathers
• Single-shot measurement of photonic topological invariant
• Classifying topological floppy modes in the continuum
• Arboreal Obstructed Atomic Insulating and Metallic Phases of Fermions
• Topological photonic crystal fibre
• Rhombohedral graphite junctions as a platform for continuous tuning between topologically trivial and non-trivial electronic phases
• Supercontinuum generation from Topological Edge Supermodes in a short SSH Photonic Crystal Fiber