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  • Visualization of a Unidirec...
    Yang, Yuting; Xu, Yun Fei; Xu, Tao; Wang, Hai-Xiao; Jiang, Jian-Hua; Hu, Xiao; Hang, Zhi Hong

    Physical review letters, 2018-May-25, Volume: 120, Issue: 21
    Journal Article

    We demonstrate experimentally that a photonic crystal made of Al_{2}O_{3} cylinders exhibits topological time-reversal symmetric electromagnetic propagation, similar to the quantum spin Hall effect in electronic systems. A pseudospin degree of freedom in the electromagnetic system representing different states of orbital angular momentum arises due to a deformation of the photonic crystal from the ideal honeycomb lattice. It serves as the photonic analogue to the electronic Kramers pair. We visualized qualitatively and measured quantitatively that microwaves of a specific pseudospin propagate only in one direction along the interface between a topological photonic crystal and a trivial one. As only a conventional dielectric material is used and only local real-space manipulations are required, our scheme can be extended to visible light to inspire many future applications in the field of photonics and beyond.