Authors
Tiantao Qu, Mudi Wang, Xiaoyu Cheng, Xiaohan Cui, Ruo-Yang Zhang, Zhao-Qing Zhang, Lei Zhang, Jun Chen, CT Chan
Publication date
2024/5/31
Journal
Physical Review Letters
Volume
132
Issue
22
Pages
223802
Publisher
American Physical Society
Description
We present the new concept of photonic alloy as a nonperiodic topological material. By mixing nonmagnetized and magnetized rods in a nonperiodic 2D photonic crystal configuration, we realized photonic alloys in the microwave regime. Our experimental findings reveal that the photonic alloy sustains nonreciprocal chiral edge states even at very low concentration of magnetized rods. The nontrivial topology and the associated edge states of these nonperiodic systems can be characterized by the winding of the reflection phase. Our results indicate that the threshold concentrations for the investigated system within the first nontrivial band gap to exhibit topological behavior approach zero in the thermodynamic limit for substitutional alloys, while the threshold remains nonzero for interstitial alloys. At low concentration, the system exhibits an inhomogeneous structure characterized by isolated patches of …
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Scholar articles
T Qu, M Wang, X Cheng, X Cui, RY Zhang, ZQ Zhang… - Physical Review Letters, 2024