Dual-polarization topological phases and phase transition in magnetic photonic crystalline insulator

• Published in: New journal of physics Vol. 23; no. 8; pp. 83042 - 83050
• Main Authors: Xi, Xiang, Li, Xi-Ming, Ye, Kang-Ping, Wu, Hua-Bing, Chen, Jian, Wu, Rui-Xin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.08.2021
• Subjects: Crystals; dual-polarization topological phases; Perturbation; Phase transitions; Phases; photonic crystal; Photonic crystals; Physics; Polarization; Symmetry; topological photonics; Topology; Unit cell
• ISSN: 1367-2630; 1367-2630
• DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/ac1c84

Abstract Two-dimensional topological photonic crystals have rapidly emerged as a recent and fascinating branch of photonic research. However, most of them were limited to a specific type of polarization, TE or TM polarization. Here, we explored the dual-polarization topological phases in two-dimensional magnetic photonic crystal (PC) which are composed of ferrite rod clusters in the plasma background. Under the perturbations of the bias magnetic field and/or the cluster distortion in the unit cell, the PC exhibited dual-polarization topological phases, including the quantum Hall (QH) phase, the higher-order quantum spin Hall (HO-QSH) phase and the conventional insulator (CI) phase. We studied the topological nature of these phases by the Wilson loop, Chern number, and unidirectional edge states. Intriguingly, we showed that the HO-QSH phases could present in PC of C 3 v symmetry instead of being restricted to C 6 v symmetry. The lower symmetry enlarges the gap in the edge states, which helps for the emergence of corner states. By continuously deforming the unit cell configuration, we demonstrated the phase transition in the system was dual-polarization. Our results extend the topological phases in the PCs and pave the way for the dual-polarization topological devices and their applications.