Photonic topological Weyl degeneracies and ideal type-I Weyl points in the gyromagnetic metamaterials

Abstract

As a new topological phase in three-dimensional momentum space, Weyl semimetals extend the repertoire of exotic topological states. In this paper, we find the existence of photonic Weyl points in electromagnetic continuous gyromagnetic metamaterials. The dispersion of the longitudinal mode of one of the two bands forming the Weyl point is flat; thus, the Weyl degeneracy point of the system is exactly at the critical transition between the type-I and type-II Weyl points. The Fermi arc connects the projections of the Weyl points with opposite chirality at the interface between the gyromagnetic metamaterial and vacuum. Full-wave simulation results show that surface waves can bypass sharp defects and achieve robust, unidirectional optical transmission without reflection. Furthermore, taking the spatial nonlocal effects into account, the ideal type-I Weyl points can exist in this class of metamaterials. This paper sheds light on fundamental understanding of topological physics, and the study of Weyl points in metamaterials will greatly enrich the field of topological photonics.