Robust Light State by Quantum Phase Transition in Non-Hermitian Optical Materials

Robust light transport is the heart of optical information processing, leading to the search for robust light states by topological engineering of material properties. Here, it is shown that quantum phase transition, rather than topology, can be strategically exploited to design a novel robust light state. We consider an interface between parity-time (PT) symmetric media with different quantum phases and use complex Berry phase to reveal the associated quantum phase transition and topological nature. While the system possesses the same topological order within different quantum phases, phase transition from PT symmetry to PT breaking across the interface in the synthetic non-Hermitian metamaterial system facilitates novel interface states, which are robust against a variety of gain/loss perturbations and topological impurities and disorder. The discovery of the robust light state by quantum phase transition may promise fault-tolerant light transport in optical communications and computing.