Abstract

Continuous and quantized transports are profoundly different. The latter is determined by the global rather than local properties of a system, it exhibits unique topological features, and its ubiquitous nature causes its occurrence in many areas of science. Here we report the first observation of fully-two-dimensional Thouless pumping of light by bulk modes in a purpose-designed tilted moiré lattices imprinted in a photorefractive crystal. Pumping in such unconfined system occurs due to the longitudinal adiabatic and periodic modulation of the refractive index. The topological nature of this phenomenon manifests itself in the magnitude and direction of shift of the beam center-of-mass averaged over one pumping cycle. Our experimental results are supported by systematic numerical simulations in the frames of the continuous Schrödinger equation governing propagation of probe light beam in optically-induced photorefractive moiré lattice. Our system affords a powerful platform for the exploration of topological pumping in tunable commensurate and incommensurate geometries.

Extending the control over topological system will open the doors to both fundamental studies and applications. Here the authors demonstrate thouless topological transport of light in a bulk tunable moiré lattice.

Details

Title
Two-dimensional Thouless pumping of light in photonic moiré lattices
Author
Wang, Peng 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Fu, Qidong 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Peng, Ruihan 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Kartashov, Yaroslav V. 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Torner, Lluis 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Konotop, Vladimir V. 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Ye, Fangwei 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Shanghai Jiao Tong University, State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai, China (GRID:grid.16821.3c) (ISNI:0000 0004 0368 8293) 
 The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, Castelldefels, Spain (GRID:grid.473715.3) (ISNI:0000 0004 6475 7299); Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Spectroscopy, Moscow, Russia (GRID:grid.4886.2) (ISNI:0000 0001 2192 9124) 
 The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, Castelldefels, Spain (GRID:grid.473715.3) (ISNI:0000 0004 6475 7299); Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain (GRID:grid.6835.8) (ISNI:0000 0004 1937 028X) 
 Universidade de Lisboa, Departamento de Física, Faculdade de Ciências, Lisboa, Portugal (GRID:grid.9983.b) (ISNI:0000 0001 2181 4263); Universidade de Lisboa, Centro de Física Teórica e Computacional, Faculdade de Ciências, Lisboa, Portugal (GRID:grid.9983.b) (ISNI:0000 0001 2181 4263) 
Publication year
2022
Publication date
2022
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20411723
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2733868751
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2022. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.