Observation of edge solitons in topological trimer arrays

Abstract

We report the experimental observation of nonlinear light localization and edge soliton formation at the edges of fs-laser written trimer waveguide arrays, where transition from non-topological to topological phases is controlled by the spacing between neighboring trimers. We found that, in the former regime, edge solitons occur only above a considerable power threshold, whereas in the latter one they bifurcate from linear states. Edge solitons are observed in a broad power range where their propagation constant falls into one of the topological gaps of the system, while partial delocalization is observed when considerable nonlinearity drives the propagation constant into an allowed band, causing coupling with bulk modes. Our results provide direct experimental evidence of the coexistence and selective excitation in the same or in different topological gaps of two types of topological edge solitons with different internal structures, which can rarely be observed even in nontopological systems. This also constitutes the first experimental evidence of formation of topological solitons in a nonlinear system with more than one topological gap.

6 pages, 4 figures

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• Topological Photonics
• Active topological photonics
• Observation of two-dimensional surface solitons in anisotropic waveguide arrays
• Chirality of topological gap solitons in bosonic dimer chains
• Nonlinear imaging of nanoscale topological corner states
• Tight-binding methods for general longitudinally driven photonic lattices -- edge states and solitons
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• Bragg solitons in topological Floquet insulators
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• Observation of nonlinearity-controlled switching of topological edge states
• Vector valley Hall edge solitons in superhoneycomb lattices
• Light bullets in Su-Schrieffer-Heeger photonic topological insulators
• Floquet edge solitons in modulated trimer waveguide arrays
• Optical control of topological end states via soliton formation in a 1D lattice
• Self-localized topological states in three dimensions
• Nonlinear Corner States in Topologically Nontrivial Kagome Lattice
• Topological gap solitons in Rabi Su-Schrieffer-Heeger lattices
• Topological solitons in coupled Su-Schrieffer-Heeger waveguide arrays
• Topological edge states in a Rydberg composite
• Floquet topological insulators with hybrid edges
• Topological edge solitons in \{chi}(2) waveguide arrays
• Observation of edge solitons and transitions between them in a trimer circuit lattice
• $\pi$-solitons on a ring of waveguides
• Observation of rotation-induced light localization in waveguide arrays
• Nonlinear quadrupole topological insulators
• Quadratic solitons in higher-order topological insulators
• Rotating topological edge solitons
• Thresholdless corner vortex solitons in fractal Sierpiński topological insulators
• Topological Phases in Non-Hermitian Nonlinear-Eigenvalue Systems
• Self-Accelerating Topological Edge States
• Thresholdless nonlinearity-induced edge solitons in trimer arrays
• Zak Phase Dislocations in Trimer Lattices
• Dark solitons in nonlinear Su-Schrieffer-Heeger lattices