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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Single-shot measurement of photonic topological invariant

Nathan Roberts1,2, Guido Baardink1, Anton Souslov1,3,*, and Peter J. Mosley1,2,†

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom
  • 2Centre for Photonics and Photonic Materials, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom
  • 3TCM Group, Cavendish Laboratory, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 0HE, United Kingdom

  • *as3546@cam.ac.uk
  • †p.mosley@bath.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. Research 6, L022010 – Published 11 April, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.L022010

Abstract

Topological design enables robustness to be engineered into a system. However, a general challenge remains to experimentally characterize topological properties. In this work, we demonstrate a technique for directly observing a winding-number invariant using a single measurement. By propagating light with a sufficiently broad spectrum along a topological photonic crystal fiber, we calculate the winding number invariant from the output intensity pattern. We quantify the capabilities of this single-shot method, which works even for surprisingly narrow and asymmetric spectral distributions. We demonstrate our approach using topological fiber, but our method is generalizable to other platforms. Our method is experimentally straightforward: we use only a broadband input excitation and a single output to measure the topological invariant.

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Phys. Rev. Research 6, L022010– Published 11 April, 2024
  • Received 19 July 2023
  • Revised 23 January 2024
  • Accepted 29 February 2024
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