Photonic Topological Anderson Insulators

TL;DR

This paper reports the first experimental demonstration of a photonic topological Anderson insulator, where disorder induces a transition from a trivial to a topological phase in a waveguide array, showcasing disorder-driven topological phenomena.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental evidence of a topological Anderson insulator in a photonic system, demonstrating disorder-induced topological phase transition.

Findings

Disorder can induce topological edge states in photonic systems.

The system transitions from trivial to topological phase with added disorder.

Experimental realization in a waveguide array confirms theoretical predictions.

Abstract

The hallmark property of two-dimensional topological materials is the incredible robustness of the quantized Hall conductivity to disorder. That robustness arises from the fact that in the topological band gap, transport can occur only along the edges modes, which are immune to scattering. However, for sufficiently strong disorder, the band gap closes and the system becomes topologically trivial as all states become localized, such that all transport vanishes -- in accordance with Anderson localization. It therefore came as a surprise when it was suggested that, for a two-dimensional quantum spin-Hall topological system, the opposite could occur. In so-called topological Anderson insulators, the emergence of protected edge states and quantized transport is caused by the introduction of disorder. However, to date, the observation of the topological Anderson insulator phase has been elusive. In this article, we report the first experimental demonstration of a topological Anderson insulator. We do that in a photonic implementation: an array of helical, evanescently-coupled waveguides in a detuned honeycomb geometry. Under proper conditions, adding on-site disorder, in the form of random variations in the refractive index contrast defining the waveguides, drives the system from a trivial phase into a topological state.