Direct observation of photonic Landau levels and helical edge states in strained honeycomb lattices
Year: 2020
Authors: Jamadi O., Rozas E., Salerno G., Milicevic M., Ozawa T., Sagnes I., Lemaitre A., Le Gratiet L., Harouri A., Carusotto I., Bloch J., Amo A.
Autors Affiliation: Univ Lille, PhLAM Phys Lasers Atomes & Mol, CNRS, UMR 8523, F-59000 Lille, France; Univ Autonoma Madrid UAM, Dept Fis Mat, Madrid 28049, Spain; Univ Autonoma Madrid UAM, Inst Nicolas Cabrera, Madrid 28049, Spain; Univ Libre Bruxelles, Ctr Nonlinear Phenomena & Complex Syst, CP 231,Campus Plaine, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium; Univ Paris Saclay, CNRS, Ctr Nanosci & Nanotechnol, F-91120 Palaiseau, France; RIKEN, Interdisciplinary Theoret & Math Sci Program iTHE, Wako, Saitama 3510198, Japan; Univ Trento, INO CNR BEC Ctr, I-38123 Povo, Italy; Univ Trento, Dipartimento Fis, I-38123 Povo, Italy.
Abstract: We report the realization of a synthetic magnetic field for photons and polaritons in a honeycomb lattice of coupled semiconductor micropillars. A strong synthetic field is induced in both the s and p orbital bands by engineering a uniaxial hopping gradient in the lattice, giving rise to the formation of Landau levels at the Dirac points. We provide direct evidence of the sublattice symmetry breaking of the lowest-order Landau level wavefunction, a distinctive feature of synthetic magnetic fields. Our realization implements helical edge states in the gap between n=0 and n=1 Landau levels, experimentally demonstrating a novel way of engineering propagating edge states in photonic lattices. In light of recent advances in the enhancement of polariton-polariton nonlinearities, the Landau levels reported here are promising for the study of the interplay between pseudomagnetism and interactions in a photonic system. Photonics: A magnetic playground for photons A honeycomb structured lattice composed of semiconductor micropillars carefully built up layer by layer can be used to make light mimic an exotic electronic behaviour known as the quantum Hall effect. An international team of researchers led by Omar Jamadi and Alberto Amo at the University of Lille in France developed the procedure, which allows photons to behave as if responding to magnetic fields, to which they are generally insensitive. The photons were induced to occupy quantized energy states known as Landau levels, in addition to adopting unusual topological arrangements. This opens what the researchers describe as “a new playground” for manipulating and exploring topological properties of light that had previously been inaccessible for study. Modifying the properties of the semiconductor micropillars could offer the possibility of studying photon nonlinearities in the honeycomb lattice.
Journal/Review: LIGHT-SCIENCE & APPLICATIONS
Volume: 9 (1) Pages from: 144-1 to: 144-10
More Information: This work was supported by the ERC grant Honeypol, the H2020-FETFLAG project PhoQus (820392), the QUANTERA project Interpol (ANR-QUAN-0003-05), the French National Research Agency project Quantum Fluids of Light (ANR-16-CE30-0021), the French government through the Programme Investissement dŽAvenir (I-SITE ULNE/ANR-16-IDEX-0004 ULNE) managed by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche, the French RENATECH network, the Labex CEMPI (ANR-11-LABX-0007), the CPER Photonics for Society P4S and the Metropole Europeenne de Lille (MEL) via the project TFlight. E.R. acknowledges financial support from FPI Scholarship No. BES-2015-074708. G.S. is supported by funding from the ERC Starting Grant TopoCold. T.O. is supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP18H05857, JST PRESTO Grant Number JPMJPR19L2, JST CREST Grant Number JPMJCR19T1, the RIKEN Incentive Research Project, and the Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences Program (iTHEMS) at RIKEN.KeyWords: Polaritons, lattice, honeycomb, edge stateDOI: 10.1038/s41377-020-00377-6Citations: 48data from “WEB OF SCIENCE” (of Thomson Reuters) are update at: 2024-11-17References taken from IsiWeb of Knowledge: (subscribers only)Connecting to view paper tab on IsiWeb: Click hereConnecting to view citations from IsiWeb: Click here