In-plane excitation of a topological nanophotonic corner state at telecom wavelengths in a cross-coupled cavity

Abstract

In silicon photonics, the cavity mode is a fundamental mechanism to design integrated passive devices for on-chip optical information processing. Recently, the corner state in a second-order topological photonic crystal (PC) rendered a global method to achieve an intrinsic cavity mode. It is crucial to explore such a topological corner state in silicon photonic integrated circuits (PICs) under in-plane excitation. Here, we study both theoretically and experimentally the topological nanophotonic corner state in a silicon-on-insulator PC cavity at a telecommunications wavelength. In theory, the expectation values of a mirror-flip operation for the Bloch modes of a PC slab are used to characterize the topological phase. Derived from topologically distinct bulk polarizations of two types of dielectric-vein PCs, the corner state is induced in a 90-deg-bend interface, localizing at the corner point of real space and the Brillouin zone boundary of reciprocal space. To implement in-plane excitation in an experiment, we fabricate a cross-coupled PC cavity based on the bend interface and directly image the corner state near 1383 nm using a far-field microscope. Finally, by means of the temporal coupled-mode theory, the intrinsic Q factor of a cross-coupled cavity (about 8000) is retrieved from the measured transmission spectra. This work gives deterministic guidance and potential applications for cavity-mode-based passive devices in silicon PICs, such as optical filters, routers, and multiplexers.