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Photonic zero mode in a non-Hermitian photonic lattice

Zero-energy particles (such as Majorana fermions) are newly predicted quasiparticles and are expected to play an important role in fault-tolerant quantum computation. In conventional Hermitian quantum systems, however, such zero states are vulnerable and even become vanishing if couplings with surro...

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Autores principales: Pan, Mingsen, Zhao, Han, Miao, Pei, Longhi, Stefano, Feng, Liang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5882938/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29615630
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03822-8
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author Pan, Mingsen
Zhao, Han
Miao, Pei
Longhi, Stefano
Feng, Liang
author_facet Pan, Mingsen
Zhao, Han
Miao, Pei
Longhi, Stefano
Feng, Liang
author_sort Pan, Mingsen
collection PubMed
description Zero-energy particles (such as Majorana fermions) are newly predicted quasiparticles and are expected to play an important role in fault-tolerant quantum computation. In conventional Hermitian quantum systems, however, such zero states are vulnerable and even become vanishing if couplings with surroundings are of the same topological nature. Here we demonstrate a robust photonic zero mode sustained by a spatial non-Hermitian phase transition in a parity-time (PT) symmetric lattice, despite the same topological order across the entire system. The non-Hermitian-enhanced topological protection ensures the reemergence of the zero mode at the phase transition interface when the two semi-lattices under different PT phases are decoupled effectively in their real spectra. Residing at the midgap level of the PT symmetric spectrum, the zero mode is topologically protected against topological disorder. We experimentally validated the robustness of the zero-energy mode by ultrafast heterodyne measurements of light transport dynamics in a silicon waveguide lattice.
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spelling pubmed-58829382018-04-06 Photonic zero mode in a non-Hermitian photonic lattice Pan, Mingsen Zhao, Han Miao, Pei Longhi, Stefano Feng, Liang Nat Commun Article Zero-energy particles (such as Majorana fermions) are newly predicted quasiparticles and are expected to play an important role in fault-tolerant quantum computation. In conventional Hermitian quantum systems, however, such zero states are vulnerable and even become vanishing if couplings with surroundings are of the same topological nature. Here we demonstrate a robust photonic zero mode sustained by a spatial non-Hermitian phase transition in a parity-time (PT) symmetric lattice, despite the same topological order across the entire system. The non-Hermitian-enhanced topological protection ensures the reemergence of the zero mode at the phase transition interface when the two semi-lattices under different PT phases are decoupled effectively in their real spectra. Residing at the midgap level of the PT symmetric spectrum, the zero mode is topologically protected against topological disorder. We experimentally validated the robustness of the zero-energy mode by ultrafast heterodyne measurements of light transport dynamics in a silicon waveguide lattice. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-04-03 /pmc/articles/PMC5882938/ /pubmed/29615630 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03822-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Pan, Mingsen
Zhao, Han
Miao, Pei
Longhi, Stefano
Feng, Liang
Photonic zero mode in a non-Hermitian photonic lattice
title Photonic zero mode in a non-Hermitian photonic lattice
title_full Photonic zero mode in a non-Hermitian photonic lattice
title_fullStr Photonic zero mode in a non-Hermitian photonic lattice
title_full_unstemmed Photonic zero mode in a non-Hermitian photonic lattice
title_short Photonic zero mode in a non-Hermitian photonic lattice
title_sort photonic zero mode in a non-hermitian photonic lattice
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5882938/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29615630
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03822-8
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