Jung Pawel S, Pyrialakos Georgios G, Wu Fan O, Parto Midya, Khajavikhan Mercedeh, Krolikowski Wieslaw, Christodoulides Demetrios N
College of Optics & Photonics-CREOL, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, 32816, USA.
Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, Koszykowa 75, 00-662, Warsaw, Poland.
Nat Commun. 2022 Jul 29;13(1):4393. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32069-7.
The chaotic evolution resulting from the interplay between topology and nonlinearity in photonic systems generally forbids the sustainability of optical currents. Here, we systematically explore the nonlinear evolution dynamics in topological photonic lattices within the framework of optical thermodynamics. By considering an archetypical two-dimensional Haldane photonic lattice, we discover several prethermal states beyond the topological phase transition point and a stable global equilibrium response, associated with a specific optical temperature and chemical potential. Along these lines, we provide a consistent thermodynamic methodology for both controlling and maximizing the unidirectional power flow in the topological edge states. This can be achieved by either employing cross-phase interactions between two subsystems or by exploiting self-heating effects in disordered or Floquet topological lattices. Our results indicate that photonic topological systems can in fact support robust photon transport processes even under the extreme complexity introduced by nonlinearity, an important feature for contemporary topological applications in photonics.
光子系统中拓扑结构与非线性相互作用所导致的混沌演化通常会阻碍光电流的持续存在。在此，我们在光热力学框架内系统地探索拓扑光子晶格中的非线性演化动力学。通过考虑一个典型的二维霍尔丹光子晶格，我们发现了拓扑相变点之外的几种预热态以及一种稳定的全局平衡响应，这与特定的光温度和化学势相关。沿着这些思路，我们为控制和最大化拓扑边缘态中的单向功率流提供了一种一致的热力学方法。这可以通过利用两个子系统之间的交叉相位相互作用，或者通过利用无序或弗洛凯拓扑晶格中的自热效应来实现。我们的结果表明，即使在非线性引入的极端复杂性下，光子拓扑系统实际上也能够支持稳健的光子传输过程，这是当代光子学拓扑应用的一个重要特征。
