Topological Photonics

Understand

Topological photonics is a rapidly emerging field of research in which geometrical and topological ideas are exploited to design and control the behavior of light.

• Drawing inspiration from the discovery of the quantum Hall effects and topological insulators in condensed matter, recent advances have shown how to engineer analogous effects also for photons, leading to remarkable phenomena such as the robust unidirectional propagation of light, which hold great promise for applications.
• Thanks to the flexibility and diversity of photonics systems, this field is also opening up new opportunities to realize exotic topological models and to probe and exploit topological effects in new ways.
• This article reviews experimental and theoretical developments in topological photonics across a wide range of experimental platforms, including photonic crystals, waveguides, metamaterials, cavities, optomechanics, silicon photonics, and circuit QED.