Engineering Tunable Synthetic Su-Schrieffer-Heeger Chains in Liquid Crystal Microcavities

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how liquid crystal microcavities can be engineered to realize tunable topological photonic Hamiltonians, specifically Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chains, with voltage-controlled coupling and polarization effects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel design of liquid crystal microcavities hosting dimerized textures that emulate coupled topological chains with tunable interchain interactions.

Findings

Realized two coupled SSH chains in liquid crystal microcavities.

Voltage controls the interchain coupling strength.

Achieved polarization-dependent interactions in the system.

Abstract

Optical microcavities have emerged as a powerful platform for emulating topological phases challenging to realize in conventional materials, offering precise control over dispersion, light confinement, and interactions. Among them, liquid crystal microcavities (LCMCs) offer exceptional tunability at room temperature, enabling voltage-controlled polarisation splitting, photonic spin-orbit coupling, and photonic potentials generated by self-assembled textures, such as cholesteric torons and uniform lying helix (ULH). Here, we design a LCMC hosting a dimerized ULH texture and show that the corresponding photonic potential describes two coupled Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chains with orthogonal linear polarisations, acting as an effective pseudospin degree of freedom. The applied voltage tunes the interchain coupling, enabling polarisation-dependent interactions. These results establish LCMCs as a versatile platform for tunable synthetic topological Hamiltonians.