M. Hafezi, J. Fan, A. Migdall, J. Taylor
Systems with topological order exhibit exotic phenomena associated purely with the boundaries of the system. While most systems with topological order have been electronic, advances in our understanding of synthetic gauge fields have enabled investigation of topological order in ultracold atoms or even with photons. Here, we demonstrate the experimental realization of synthetic magnetic fields for infrared photons at room temperature. Our implementation corresponds to a spin-orbit Hamiltonian, uses linear optics and does not break time reversal symmetry. As a proof of topological order, we directly observe for the first time, edge states for light in a two-dimensional system. This realization demonstrates the feasibility of using a photonic platform for the investigation of a wide range of topological order in both the non-interacting and many-body regimes and highlights the broad promise of this tool.
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http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.2153
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