Giant Interatomic Energy-Transport Amplification with Nonreciprocal Photonic Topological Insulators

Abstract

We show that the energy-transport efficiency in a chain of two-level emitters can be drastically enhanced by the presence of a photonic topological insulator (PTI). This is obtained by exploiting the peculiar properties of its nonreciprocal surface plasmon polariton (SPP), which is unidirectional, and immune to backscattering, and propagates in the bulk band gap. This amplification of transport efficiency can be as much as 2 orders of magnitude with respect to reciprocal SPPs. Moreover, we demonstrate that despite the presence of considerable imperfections at the interface of the PTI, the efficiency of the SPP-assisted energy transport is almost unaffected by discontinuities. We also show that the SPP properties allow energy transport over considerably much larger distances than in the reciprocal case, and we point out a particularly simple way to tune the transport. Finally, we analyze the specific case of a two-emitter chain and unveil the origin of the efficiency amplification. The efficiency amplification and the practical advantages highlighted in this work might be particularly useful in the development of new devices intended to manage energy at the atomic scale.

Subradiance-protected excitation transport

“…Super-and subradiance have been observed experimentally not only in atomic gases, but also in QED circuits [22,23], metamaterial arrays [24], and quantum dots [25][26][27]. This collective atom-light coupling has found a variety of applications such as storage of light via the preparation of subradiant states through phase-imprinting protocols [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38], topologically protected transport of excitations [39,40], or efficient long-range energy transport [41][42][43][44][45][46].…”

Coupling between subwavelength nano-slit lattice modes and metal-insulator-graphene cavity modes: a semi-analytical model

“…Finally, armed with these analytical expressions, we provided a full description of the resonance phenomena occurring in the system. Our analysis in terms of simple modes couplings can be extended to study the coupling of the lattice modes with a substrate made by a non-reciprocal photonic topological materials, of particular interest for energy management and transport [33] and for atomic manipulation [34]. The analysis of such complex hybrid configurations involving diffraction gratings coupled to hybrid graphene multilayer structures could also be applied to study and to estimate more complicated phenomena, like the Casimir effect [35] and the radiative heat transfer [36].…”

Rapid Design, Fabrication, and Optimization of 3D Printed Photonic Topological Insulators

“…Photonic topological insulators (TIs), periodic structures with a band gap in the bulk but gapless dispersion at the edges, possess the unique ability to guide light around defects and sharp turns without scattering. [1][2][3] Such topological protection of light propagation provides an exciting new platform for on-chip low-threshold lasing, [4][5][6] robust long-range quantum information and energy transfer, [7][8][9] unidirectional emission from spin-polarized quantum states, [10] robust optical resonators and delay lines, [11,12] soliton generation, [13,14] and quantum networks. [7,15,16] Photonic TIs were first demonstrated at microwave frequencies by breaking time-reversal symmetry in a lattice of gyromagnetic rods, producing the photonic analogue of the quantum Hall effect [17] which produces a single unidirectional chiral edge state.…”