Topologically protected strongly-correlated states of photons

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the creation of topologically protected, strongly correlated photon states by coupling emitters to chiral edge states in topological photonic crystals, revealing universal scattering properties and robustness.

Contribution

It introduces a method to generate strongly correlated photon states using topological photonic structures with universal scattering characteristics.

Findings

Scattering outcomes depend only on universal Laguerre polynomial zeros.

Two-photon correlations show an even-odd effect based on emitter number.

Results are robust against emitter frequency fluctuations.

Abstract

Hybrid photonic nanostructures allow the engineering of novel interesting states of light. One recent example is topological photonic crystals where a nontrivial Berry phase of the photonic band structure gives rise to topologically protected unidirectionally-propagating (chiral) edge states of photons. Here we demonstrate that by coupling an array of emitters to the chiral photonic edge state one can create strongly correlated states of photons in a highly controllable way. These are topologically protected and have a number of remarkable universal properties: The outcome of scattering does not depend on the positions of emitters and is given only by universal numbers, the zeroes of Laguerre polynomials; two-photon correlation functions manifest a well-pronounced even-odd effect with respect to the number of emitters, and the result of scattering is robust with respect to fluctuations in the emitters' transition frequencies.