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Topologically Tunable Polaritons Based on a Two-Dimensional Crystal in a Photonic Lattice

L. Lackner1, O. A. Egorov2, A. Ernzerhof1, C. Bennenhei1, V. N. Mitryakhin1, G. Leibeling3, F. Eilenberger3,4, S. Tongay5, U. Peschel2 et al.

M. Esmann1 and C. Schneider1

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 166901 – Published 15 October, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/qphl-qd37

Abstract

Structured optical cavities have advanced as a powerful test bed to study lattice Hamiltonians in general, and topological phenomena in particular. The in situ tuning of topological modes, enabled via substantial modifications of emulated lattice potentials, has remained out of experimental reach due to the commonly utilized monolithic cavity samples. Here, we study the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) lattice Hamiltonian, which we emulate in a widely tunable open optical cavity strongly coupled to excitons in an integrated WS2 monolayer. The potential landscape comprises a topological domain boundary hosting a topological, exponentially localized mode at the interface between two lattices characterized by different Zak phases. The mode is spectrally tunable over 80 meV. Moreover, we use the unique tilt tunability of our implementation to transform the SSH lattice into a Stark ladder. This transformation couples the topologically protected defect mode to propagating lattice modes and effectively changes the symmetry of the system. Furthermore, it allows us to directly quantify the Zak-phase difference ΔZak=(1.07±0.11)π between the two topological phases. Our Letter constitutes an important step toward in situ tuning topological lattices to control and guide light on nonlinear chips.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 166901– Published 15 October, 2025
  • Received 5 June 2024
  • Revised 7 April 2025
  • Accepted 10 September 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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