Inverse Design of Photonic Topological Insulators with Extra‐Wide Bandgaps

Observation of photonic anomalous Floquet topological insulators

Topological insulators are a new class of materials that exhibit robust and scatter-free transport along their edges - independently of the fine details of the system and of the edge - due to topological protection. To classify the topological character of two-dimensional systems without additional symmetries, one commonly uses Chern numbers, as their sum computed from all bands below a specifi...

Self-localized states in photonic topological insulators.

We propose solitons in a photonic topological insulator: self-localized wave packets forming topological edge states residing in the bulk of a nonlinear photonic topological insulator. These self-forming entities exhibit, despite being in the bulk, the property of unidirectional transport, similar to the transport their linear counterparts display on the edge of a topological insulator. In the ...

Photonic bandgaps of conformally coated structures

Polymeric molds of the layer-by-layer photonic crystal can be economically synthesized with a microtransfer molding technique. The refractive indices of these molds are low, preventing formation of a photonic bandgap. We find that such molds can be conformally coated with higher-index material. Photonic band calculations find structures in which conformally coated layer-by-layer molds have comp...

Topological Insulators with Inversion Symmetry

Topological insulators are materials with a bulk excitation gap generated by the spin-orbit interaction that are different from conventional insulators. This distinction is characterized by Z2 topological invariants, which characterize the ground state. In two dimensions, there is a single Z2 invariant that distinguishes the ordinary insulator from the quantum spin-Hall phase. In three dimensio...

Topological insulators