E-resources
-
He, Cheng; Sun, Xiao-Chen; Liu, Xiao-Ping; Lu, Ming-Hui; Chen, Yulin; Feng, Liang; Chen, Yan-Feng
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, 05/2016, Volume: 113, Issue: 18Journal Article
A topological insulator is a material with an insulating interior but time-reversal symmetry-protected conducting edge states. Since its prediction and discovery almost a decade ago, such a symmetry-protected topological phase has been explored beyond electronic systems in the realm of photonics. Electrons are spin-1/2 particles, whereas photons are spin-1 particles. The distinct spin difference between these two kinds of particles means that their corresponding symmetry is fundamentally different. It is well understood that an electronic topological insulator is protected by the electron’s spin-1/2 (fermionic) time-reversal symmetry T f 2 = − 1 . However, the same protection does not exist under normal circumstances for a photonic topological insulator, due to photon’s spin-1 (bosonic) time-reversal symmetry T b 2 = − 1 . In this work, we report a design of photonic topological insulator using the Tellegen magnetoelectric coupling as the photonic pseudospin orbit interaction for left and right circularly polarized helical spin states. The Tellegen magnetoelectric coupling breaks bosonic time-reversal symmetry but instead gives rise to a conserved artificial fermionic-like-pseudo time-reversal symmetry, T p ( T p 2 = − 1 ) , due to the electromagnetic duality. Surprisingly, we find that, in this system, the helical edge states are, in fact, protected by this fermionic-like pseudo time-reversal symmetry Tp rather than by the bosonic time-reversal symmetry Tb . This remarkable finding is expected to pave a new path to understanding the symmetry protection mechanism for topological phases of other fundamental particles and to searching for novel implementations for topological insulators.
Author
Shelf entry
Permalink
- URL:
Impact factor
Access to the JCR database is permitted only to users from Slovenia. Your current IP address is not on the list of IP addresses with access permission, and authentication with the relevant AAI accout is required.
Year | Impact factor | Edition | Category | Classification | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
JCR | SNIP | JCR | SNIP | JCR | SNIP | JCR | SNIP |
Select the library membership card:
If the library membership card is not in the list,
add a new one.
DRS, in which the journal is indexed
Database name | Field | Year |
---|
Links to authors' personal bibliographies | Links to information on researchers in the SICRIS system |
---|
Source: Personal bibliographies
and: SICRIS
The material is available in full text. If you wish to order the material anyway, click the Continue button.