LMI Seminar: Photonic Crystal Pseudomagnetism

Abstract:

Breaking Lorentz reciprocity (or time-reversal symmetry) is hard for photons because they don’t carry charge and therefore don’t respond directly to an external magnetic field.  Here, I’ll present our experimental results on how straining a photonic crystal with a Dirac point generates a strong artificial magnetic field; we directly observe photonic Landau levels as a result.  I will then present a theoretical result showing how a non-reciprocal photonic Chern insulator can be used to make a wide-bandwidth slow-light waveguide that is resistant to backscattering.