Abstract
We present a microwave experimental setup emulating tight-binding systems that is now widely used in the realm of topological photonics. A thorough description of the experimental building blocks is presented, showing the advantages and the limits of this platform. Various experimental realizations are then described, ranging from the selective enhancement of a defect state in a non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) chain, to the generation of giant pseudo-magnetic fields in deformed honeycomb lattices. Introducing nonlinear losses, the interplay between nonlinearity and topological protection can be engineered to realize a nonlinearly functionalized topological mode with promising applications in receiver protection.
Highlights
Topological phases of matter are characterized by a global property – a topological invariant – which make them insensitive to continuous deformation and disorder
First graphene-like lattices have been investigated [29], followed by experimental realization of various systems ranging from Dirac oscillator [30] to transport in molecules [31] and nanoribbons [32] to experimental implementation of quantum search algorithms [33] and to give a physical interpretation of the gap labelling in a Penrose tiling [34]
In the remarkably vivid domain of topological photonics, experiments performed in the microwave regime play a leading role
Summary
Topological phases of matter are characterized by a global property – a topological invariant – which make them insensitive to continuous deformation and disorder. Topological photonics aims at exploiting the topological robustness to improve the performances of photonic devices from laser sources to waveguides and sensors. In this context, microwave setups are a driving force in the experimental studies of topological photonic properties in one (1D) or two-dimensional (2D) systems [11]. It is worth noting that microwaves sources, detectors and components are routinely accessible and that typical lattice building block scale is cm. It makes topological systems operating in the microwave range rather easy to implement and to manipulate with high sub-wavelength precision.
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