Polariton $\mathbb{Z}$ Topological Insulator
Abstract
Recent search for optical analogues of topological phenomena mainly focuses on mimicking the key feature of quantum Hall and quantum spin Hall effects (QHE and QSHE): edge currents protected from disorder. QHE relies on time-reversal symmetry breaking, which can be realised in photonic gyromagnetic crystals. In the optical range, the weak magneto-optical activity may be replaced with helical design of coupled waveguides, converting light propagation into a time-dependent perturbation. Finally, optical QHE due to artificial gauge fields was predicted in microcavity lattices. Here, we consider honeycomb arrays of microcavity pillars as an alternative optical-frequency 2D topological insulator. We show that the interplay between the photonic spin-orbit coupling natively present in this system and the Zeeman splitting of exciton-polaritons in external magnetic fields leads to the opening of a non-trivial gap characterised by set of band Chern numbers and to the formation of topologically protected one-way edge states.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1409.6564,
title = {Polariton $\mathbb{Z}$ Topological Insulator},
author = {A. V. Nalitov and D. D. Solnyshkov and G. Malpuech},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1409.6564},
year = {2015}
}