We demonstrate that two-dimensional atomic emitter arrays with subwavelength spacing constitute topologically protected quantum optical systems where the photon propagation is robust against large imperfections while losses associated with free space emission are strongly suppressed. Breaking time-reversal symmetry with a magnetic field results in gapped photonic bands with non-trivial Chern numbers and topologically protected, long-lived edge states. Due to the inherent nonlinearity of constituent emitters, such systems provide a platform for exploring quantum optical analogues of interacting topological systems.
@article{arxiv.1703.04849,
title = {Topological Quantum Optics in Two-Dimensional Atomic Arrays},
author = {Janos Perczel and Johannes Borregaard and Darrick E. Chang and Hannes Pichler and Susanne F. Yelin and Peter Zoller and Mikhail D. Lukin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.04849},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
11 pages and 9 figures; paper updated to match published version