A sublattice Stokes polarimeter for bipartite photonic lattices

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel sublattice Stokes polarimeter for bipartite photonic lattices, enabling detailed measurement of Bloch modes and system Hamiltonians, with potential applications in topological and quantum material studies.

Contribution

It presents a new method for measuring sublattice polarization in photonic lattices using k-space photoluminescence, extending Stokes polarimetry to internal degrees of freedom.

Findings

Reconstructed Bloch modes with sub-linewidth precision

Achieved detailed eigenenergy mapping near band touching points

Enabled access to the quantum geometric tensor

Abstract

The concept of pseudo-spin provides a general framework for describing physical systems featuring two-component spinors, including light polarization, sublattice degrees of freedom in bipartite lattices, and valley polarization in 2D materials. In all cases, the pseudo-spin can be mapped to a Stokes vector on the Poincar\'e sphere. Stokes polarimeters for measuring the polarization of light are a powerful tool with a wide range of applications both in classical and quantum science. Generalizing Stokes polarimetry to other spinor degrees of freedom is thus a challenge of prime importance. Here, we introduce and demonstrate a Stokes polarimeter for the sublattice polarization in a bipartite photonic lattice. Our method relies on k-space photoluminescence intensity measurements under controlled phase shifts and attenuations applied independently to each sublattice. We implement our method using honeycomb arrays of coupled microcavities realizing photonic analogs of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride. Using our sublattice polarimeter, we reconstruct the Bloch modes in amplitude and phase across the Brillouin zone, achieving sub-linewidth precision in the determination of their eigenenergies, including near band touching points. This enables full access to the system Bloch Hamiltonian and quantum geometric tensor. Our approach can readily be extended to more complex systems with additional internal degrees of freedom, enabling experimental investigations of trigonal warping, Chern insulating phases, and Euler-class topology in multigap systems.