Giant topological magnetoelectric and optical Hall effects for topological insulator as a defect in photonic crystal

TL;DR

This paper proposes a system with a topological insulator in photonic crystals that exhibits giant topological magnetoelectric and optical Hall effects, with potential applications in sensitive detection of physical constants.

Contribution

It introduces a novel photonic structure with a topological insulator defect that demonstrates unprecedented topological magnetoelectric and optical Hall effects.

Findings

Giant topological magnetoelectric effect with resonant peaks and polarization behaviors.

Giant optical Hall effect with transverse light shift thousands of times larger than wavelength.

Effects are observable and can be used for detecting physical constants.

Abstract

A system with a topological insulator slab sandwiched by two one-dimensional photonic crystals as a defect is investigated. A giant topological magnetoelectric effect is proposed which is characterized by two resonant peaks with half-unit transmissions and rich polarization behaviors in the photonic band gap. We also predict a giant optical Hall effect in our system, in which the transverse shift of the transmitted light could be thousand times larger than the wavelength. These effects are purely from the $\Theta$-domain walls at the topological insulator interfaces and could be observed easily. These effects can also be used as the sensitive detection of basic physical constants.