Realization of chiral whispering gallery mode cavities enabled by photonic Chern insulators

Abstract

Recently, whispering gallery modes (WGMs) have attracted considerable attention due to their extensive applications in the development of on-chip microcavities, high-sensitivity sensors, and high-performance lasers. Conventional WGMs are achiral under the time-reversal symmetry, and show high sensitivity to defects in optical devices. Here, we introduce topological physics into photonic cavities and demonstrate the realization of chiral WGMs enabled by photonic Chern insulators. Through comprehensive numerical simulations and experimental measurements, we reveal the critical differences between chiral and achiral WGMs, highlighting the robustness of chiral WGMs even in the presence of defects within the cavities. Our research provides valuable insights into the design of robust WGM cavities and offers a novel platform for exploring light-matter interaction phenomena.

14 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Topological Photonics
• Classification of topological insulators and superconductors in three spatial dimensions
• Photonic Analogue of Two-dimensional Topological Insulators and Helical One-Way Edge Transport in Bi-Anisotropic Metamaterials
• Scheme to Achieve Silicon Topological Photonics
• Reflection-Free One-Way Edge Modes in a Gyromagnetic Photonic Crystal
• Bulk Topological Invariants in Noninteracting Point Group Symmetric Insulators
• Topological photonic crystals: physics, designs and applications
• Photonic topological insulators a beginner's introduction