Light bullets in Su-Schrieffer-Heeger photonic topological insulators
We introduce a different class of thresholdless three-dimensional soliton states that form in higher-order topological insulators based on a two-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger array of coupled waveguides. The linear spectrum of such structures is characterized by the presence of a topological gap...
| Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | article |
| Publication Date: | 2023 |
| Country: | España |
| Institution: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repository: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Language: | English |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/387552 |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/387552 https://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.107.033514 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | Solitons Bifurcation Optical Kerr effect Optical solitons Surface states Topological insulators Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria de la telecomunicació::Telecomunicació òptica::Fotònica |
| Summary: | We introduce a different class of thresholdless three-dimensional soliton states that form in higher-order topological insulators based on a two-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger array of coupled waveguides. The linear spectrum of such structures is characterized by the presence of a topological gap with corner states residing in them. We find that a focusing Kerr nonlinearity allows families of light bullets bifurcating from the linear corner states to exist as stable three-dimensional solitons, which inherit topological protection from their linear corner counterparts and, remarkably, survive even in the presence of considerable disorder. The light bullets exhibit a spatial localization degree that depends strongly on the array dimerization, and may feature large temporal widths in the topological gap near the bifurcation point, thus drastically reducing the otherwise strong instabilities caused by higher-order effects. |
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