Direct Measurement of a Non-Hermitian Topological Invariant in a Hybrid Light-Matter System

TL;DR

This study directly measures a novel non-Hermitian topological invariant in a hybrid light-matter system using exciton polaritons, revealing fractional spectral winding near exceptional points at room temperature.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental measurement of a non-Hermitian topological invariant in a condensed matter system with exciton polaritons.

Findings

Mapped real and imaginary parts of the spectrum near exceptional points

Extracted fractional spectral winding as the topological invariant

Demonstrated non-Hermitian topological phase in a room-temperature system

Abstract

Topology is central to understanding and engineering materials that display robust physical phenomena immune to imperfections. Different topological phases of matter are characterised by topological invariants. In energy-conserving (Hermitian) systems, these invariants are determined by the winding of eigenstates in momentum space. In non-Hermitian systems, a novel topological invariant is predicted to emerge from the winding of the complex eigenenergies. Here, we directly measure the non-Hermitian topological invariant arising from exceptional points in the momentum-resolved spectrum of exciton polaritons. These are hybrid light-matter quasiparticles formed by photons strongly coupled to electron-hole pairs (excitons) in a halide perovskite semiconductor at room temperature. We experimentally map out both the real (energy) and imaginary (linewidth) parts of the spectrum near the exceptional points and extract the novel topological invariant - fractional spectral winding. Our work represents an essential step towards realisation of non-Hermitian topological phases in a condensed matter system.