Topological Anderson phase in quasi-periodic waveguide lattices

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that quasi-periodic disorder in a waveguide lattice can induce a topological phase transition, providing a new way to realize topological Anderson phases in photonic systems.

Contribution

It reveals that quasi-periodic disorder can drive a trivial SSH waveguide lattice into a topological phase, expanding understanding of disorder-induced topological phenomena.

Findings

Quasi-periodic disorder induces topological phase transition.

Edge light dynamics can detect the topological Anderson phase.

The study extends topological disorder effects to correlated quasi-periodic systems.

Abstract

The topological trivial band of a lattice can be driven into a topological phase by disorder in the system. This so-called topological Anderson phase has been predicted and observed for uncorrelated static disorder, while in the presence of correlated disorder conflicting results are found. Here we consider a Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) waveguide lattice in the trivial topological phase, and show that quasi-periodic disorder in the coupling constants can drive the lattice into a topological non-trivial phase. A method to detect the emergence of the topological Anderson phase, based on light dynamics at the edge of a quasi-periodic waveguide lattice, is suggested.