State-recycling and time-resolved imaging in topological photonic lattices

TL;DR

This paper introduces a cavity-based method for long-timescale, time-resolved imaging in topological photonic lattices, enabling new experiments in simulating complex quantum phenomena.

Contribution

It presents a novel cavity setup with state-recycling and real-time detection, allowing long-term evolution studies in photonic lattices emulating topological phases.

Findings

Successful implementation of state-recycling in photonic lattices.

Realization of synthetic pulsed electric fields for transport studies.

Observation of long-timescale effects in topological photonic systems.

Abstract

Photonic lattices - arrays of optical waveguides - are powerful platforms for simulating a range of phenomena, including topological phases. While probing dynamics is possible in these systems, by reinterpreting the propagation direction as "time," accessing long timescales constitutes a severe experimental challenge. Here, we overcome this limitation by placing the photonic lattice in a cavity, which allows the optical state to evolve through the lattice multiple times. The accompanying detection method, which exploits a multi-pixel single-photon detector array, offers quasi-real time-resolved measurements after each round trip. We apply the state-recycling scheme to intriguing photonic lattices emulating Dirac fermions and Floquet topological phases. In this new platform, we also realise a synthetic pulsed electric field, which can be used to drive transport within photonic lattices. This work opens a new route towards the detection of long timescale effects in engineered photonic lattices and the realization of hybrid analogue-digital simulators.