Science Daily January 10, 2023
Topological states enable robust transport within disorder-rich media. However, to exploit topological protection in a length-scalable platform such as optical fiber remains a challenge. Through modeling and experiment a team of researchers in the UK demonstrated that optical fiber hosts topological supermodes across multiple light-guiding cores. They directly measured the photonic winding number invariant characterizing the bulk and observed topological guidance of visible light over meter length scales. The mechanical flexibility of fiber allowed them to reversibly reconfigure the topological state. As the fiber was bent, they found that the edge states first lost their localization and then became relocalized because of disorder. According to the researchers fiber could be a scalable platform to explore and exploit topological effects in photonic networks…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Bulk and edge states…. Credit: SCIENCE ADVANCES, 21 Dec 2022, Vol 8, Issue 51Â