Science Daily October 8, 2021
By combining the strong coupling between topological photons with phonons in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), researchers at the City College of New York demonstrated a platform to control and guide hybrid states of light and lattice vibrations. The observed topological edge states of phonon-polaritons are found to carry nonzero angular momentum locked to their propagation direction, which enables their robust transport. Thus, these topological quasiparticles enable the funneling of infrared phonons mediated by helical infrared photons along arbitrary pathways and across sharp bends. This opens opportunities for applications ranging from Raman and vibrational spectroscopy with structured phonon-polaritons to directional heat dissipation…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Topologically distinct photonic crystals (orange and blue) with a layer of hexagonal boron nitride on top enable coupling of topological light and lattice vibrations… Credit: Filipp Komissarenko and Sriram Guddala