Nonlinearity, topology and PT symmetry in Photonic Lattices

Abstract

Since over a decade, there is an ever-growing interest of scientific community towards the hot topics of so-called parity-time (PT ) symmetry and topological phases of matter, historically originating from non-Hermitian extensions of Quantum Mechanics and phase transitions without symmetry breaking in Condensed Matter Physics, respectively. Recent technological advancements in Photonics allowed one to study and fruitfully develop some of the most peculiar aspects of PT symmetry and topological matter on both theoretical and experimental levels. PT -symmetric photonic structures, with a judicious tailoring of gain and loss bulk regions, became a new paradigm in controlling the ow of light in unconventional manner, thereby paving the way to novel applications in laser physics, synthetic optical materials, optical sensing and so on. Likewise, fundamental ideas of topology rapidly emerged in the field of Photonics and brought about new possibilities for harnessing light, such as robust backscattering-free transport and Thouless pumping, to name a few. Owing to universality of the topological principles, a wide range of experimental platforms became feasible, including waveguides, metamaterials, optical crystals, optomechanics, silicon-based photonics, cavities and circuit QED. Most of the aspects of PT symmetry and topology in Photonics are very well understood in the linear regime, where light particles, photons, do not interact with each other. In contrast, up to date, they remain hardly explored in nonlinear optical regimes, characterized by self-interaction and self-localization of light in nonlinear media. In that regard, the aim of this thesis is to extend those powerful ideas further on in the direction of nonlinear light, in order to eventually discover and experimentally observe novel phenomena and interplays between nonlinearity, PT symmetry and topology. For that, we study both experimentally and theoretically 1D and 2D Discrete Photonic Lattices with synthetic dimensions, mimicking the celebrated Discrete Quantum Walks and experimentally based on the extremely versatile and interferometrically robust technique, called time-multiplexing. The set-ups essentially consist of optical fiber loops, mutually coupled via passive or active in-fiber beam splitters. In particular, we discover and experimentally observe novel and fascinating aspects of non-Hermitian discrete solitons in PT -symmetric environments and topological chiral edge states under the action of optical Kerr nonlinearity.