Weyl points and exceptional rings with polaritons in bulk semiconductors

TL;DR

This paper predicts the existence of Weyl points and exceptional rings in three-dimensional polaritons within bulk semiconductors under magnetic fields, highlighting their potential for topological photonics research.

Contribution

It introduces the first prediction of three-dimensional topological polaritons with Weyl points and exceptional rings in bulk semiconductors, incorporating dissipation effects.

Findings

Weyl points and line nodes are predicted in 3D polariton dispersion.

Absorption transforms Weyl points into Weyl exceptional rings.

Bulk semiconductors are promising for 3D topological photonics studies.

Abstract

Weyl points are the simplest topologically-protected degeneracy in a three-dimensional dispersion relation. The realization of Weyl semimetals in photonic crystals has allowed these singularities and their consequences to be explored with electromagnetic waves. However, it is difficult to achieve nonlinearities in such systems. One promising approach is to use the strong-coupling of photons and excitons, because the resulting polaritons interact through their exciton component. Yet topological polaritons have only been realized in two dimensions. Here, we predict that the dispersion relation for polaritons in three dimensions, in a bulk semiconductor with an applied magnetic field, contains Weyl points and Weyl line nodes. We show that absorption converts these Weyl points to Weyl exceptional rings. We conclude that bulk semiconductors are a promising system in which to investigate topological photonics in three dimensions, and the effects of dissipation, gain, and nonlinearity.