Observation of Unidirectional s-p Orbital Topological Edge States in Driven Photonic Lattices

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates unidirectional topological edge states in a photonic lattice by periodically modulating couplings between s and p orbitals, creating a Floquet topological insulator with potential for exploring orbital-based topological phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of realizing Floquet topological insulators using inter-orbital couplings between s and p orbitals in a driven photonic lattice, incorporating synthetic magnetic flux.

Findings

Observation of unidirectional s-p orbital topological edge states.

Topological bandgap characterized by Floquet winding number.

Edge modes travel unidirectionally around a corner.

Abstract

Time-periodic modulation of a static system is a powerful method for realizing robust unidirectional topological states. So far, all such realizations have been based on interactions among $s$ orbitals, without incorporating inter-orbital couplings. Here, we demonstrate higher-orbital Floquet topological insulators by introducing periodically modulated couplings between the optical $s$ and $p$ orbitals in a square lattice. The staggered phase of the $s$-$p$ couplings gives rise to a synthetic uniform $\pi$ magnetic flux per plaquette of the lattice, and periodic driving of the couplings opens a topological bandgap, characterized by the Floquet winding number. We image topological edge modes of $s$-$p$ orbitals traveling unidirectionally around a corner. Here, the topological phases are realized by a combined effect of the periodic driving and synthetic magnetic flux. Consequently, when the synthetic flux is turned off, the system becomes trivial over a range of driving parameters. Our results open a promising pathway for exploring topological phenomena by introducing the orbital degree of freedom.