Probing rotated Weyl physics on nonlinear lithium niobate-on-insulator chips

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the experimental realization of rotated Weyl physics in lithium niobate-on-insulator chips, enabling the study of topological interface states and advancing integrated nonlinear and quantum photonics.

Contribution

It introduces a method to construct arbitrary interfaces between Weyl structures with rotated orientations in a 3D parameter space on LNOI chips, which was previously difficult in natural Weyl semimetals.

Findings

Experimental construction of arbitrary Weyl interfaces on LNOI chips.

Observation of topological interface states via optical transmission.

Probing of local topological states using nonlinear second harmonic generation.

Abstract

Topological photonics, featured by stable topological edge states resistant to perturbations, has been utilized to design robust integrated devices. Here, we present a study exploring the intriguing topological rotated Weyl physics in a 3D parameter space based on quaternary waveguide arrays on lithium niobate-on-insulator (LNOI) chips. Unlike previous works that focus on the Fermi arc surface states of a single Weyl structure, we can experimentally construct arbitrary interfaces between two Weyl structures whose orientations can be freely rotated in the synthetic parameter space. This intriguing system was difficult to realize in usual 3D Weyl semimetals due to lattice mismatch. We found whether the interface can host gapless topological interface states (TISs) or not, is determined by the relative rotational directions of the two Weyl structures. In the experiment, we have probed the local characteristics of the TISs through linear optical transmission and nonlinear second harmonic generation. Our study introduces a novel path to explore topological photonics on LNOI chips and various applications in integrated nonlinear and quantum optics.