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Light guiding by artificial gauge fields

Nature Photonics volume 13, pages 339–345 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Artificial gauge fields enable uncharged particles to behave as if affected by external fields. Generated by geometry or modulation, artificial gauge fields are instrumental in realizing topological physics in photonics, cold atoms and acoustics. Here, we experimentally demonstrate waveguiding by artificial gauge fields. We construct artificial gauge fields by using waveguide arrays with non-trivial trajectories. Tilting the arrays results in gauge fields that are different in the core and cladding, shifting their dispersion curves, thereby confining the light to the core. In a more advanced setting, we demonstrate waveguiding in a medium with the same gauge and dispersion everywhere, where the only difference between the core and the cladding is a phase shift in the dynamics of the gauge fields, which facilitates waveguiding via bound states in the continuum. Waveguiding and bound states in the continuum via artificial gauge fields relate to a plethora of systems, ranging from photonics and microwaves to cold atoms and acoustics.

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Fig. 1: Waveguiding of light by artificial gauge fields in tilted arrays.
Fig. 2: Experimental results displaying waveguiding by artificial gauge fields in tilted arrays.
Fig. 3: Waveguiding of light by phase-shifted but otherwise identical artificial gauge fields.
Fig. 4: Experimental results displaying waveguiding by phase-shifted artificial gauge fields.
Fig. 5: Experimental results displaying phase-shifted gauge guiding in sinusoidal arrays.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the German–Israeli DIP Program (grant no. BL 574/13-1), the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grants nos. SZ 276/9-1, SZ 276/19-1 and SZ 276/20-1) and an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council. The authors thank C. Otto for preparing the high-quality fused-silica samples used in all experiments presented here.

Author contributions

All authors contributed significantly to this work.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Yaakov Lumer, Miguel A. Bandres.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physics Department and the Solid State Institute, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

    Yaakov Lumer, Miguel A. Bandres, Hanan Herzig-Sheinfux & Mordechai Segev

  2. Institut für Physik, Universität Rostock, Rostock, Germany

    Matthias Heinrich, Lukas J. Maczewsky & Alexander Szameit

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  1. Yaakov Lumer
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Correspondence to Mordechai Segev.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains more information on the work, Supplementary Figures and descriptions of Supplementary Videos 1–3.

Supplementary Video 1

Movie of the experimentally measured profiles of the guiding behaviour of the array as a function of the kx momentum for waveguiding by artificial gauge fields in tilted arrays (Fig. 2a–c).

Supplementary Video 2

Movie of the experimentally measured profiles of the guiding behaviour of the array as a function of the kx momentum for waveguiding by artificial gauge fields in tilted arrays (Fig. 2d–f).

Supplementary Video 3

Movie of the experimentally measured profiles of the guiding behaviour of the array as a function of the kx momentum for waveguiding by phase-shifted artificial gauge fields (Fig. 4).

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Lumer, Y., Bandres, M.A., Heinrich, M. et al. Light guiding by artificial gauge fields. Nat. Photonics 13, 339–345 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-019-0370-1

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