Resonant edge-state switching in polariton topological insulators

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a resonant coupling mechanism between topological edge states in polariton topological insulators using weak temporal modulations, enabling controlled switching without destroying topological protection.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for resonantly coupling and switching topological edge states via temporal modulation in polariton systems, preserving their topological properties.

Findings

Resonant edge-state coupling achieved through temporal modulation.

Switching rate depends on ribbon width and modulation depth.

Mechanism applicable to various topological photonic systems.

Abstract

Topological insulators are unique devices supporting unidirectional edge states at their interfaces. Due to topological protection, such edge states persist in the presence of disorder and do not experience backscattering upon interaction with defects. We show that despite the topological protection and the fact that such states at the opposite edges of a ribbon carry opposite currents, there exists a physical mechanism allowing to resonantly couple topological excitations propagating at opposite edges. Such mechanism uses weak periodic temporal modulations of the system parameters and does not affect the internal symmetry and topology of the system. We study this mechanism in truncated honeycomb arrays of microcavity pillars, where topological insulation is possible for polaritons under the combined action of spin-orbit coupling and Zeeman splitting in the external magnetic field. The temporal modulation of the potential leads to a periodic switching between topological states with the same Bloch momentum, but located at the opposite edges. The switching rate is found to increase for narrower ribbon structures and for larger modulation depth, though it is changing nonmonotonically with the Bloch momentum of the input edge state. Our results provide a promising realization of a coupling device based on topologically protected states. The proposed scheme can be used in other topological photonic and condensed matter systems, including Floquet insulators and graphene.