Photonic topological insulators induced by non-Hermitian disorders in a coupled-cavity array

Understand

Recent studies of disorder or non-Hermiticity induced topological insulators inject new ingredients for engineering topological matter.

• Here we consider the effect of purely non-Hermitian disorders, a combination of these two ingredients, in a 1D coupled-cavity array with disordered gain and loss.
• Topological photonic states can be induced by increasing gain-loss disorder strength with topological invariants carried by localized states in the complex bulk spectra.
• The system showcases rich phase diagrams and distinct topological states from Hermitian disorders.