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The rapidly growing field of topological photonics exploits non-trivial topology of the band structure of designed optical media to control the behavior of light. Topological protection of photons leads to highly unusual phenomena such as backscattering-immune transport and robustness against disorders which hold great promise for applications as well as exploration of fundamental theoretical concepts such as Berry phase and topological invariants.
In this talk, I will showcase our groundbreaking achievement: the introduction of the first topological quantum cascade laser operating in the terahertz regime. Topological protection of lasing modes allows for unprecedented robustness, compactness, versatile cavity designs, and scalability.
Furthermore, I will delve into our exploration of novel transport phenomena within Weyl semimetals where we show how the transport of bulk states is influenced by the topological edge states.
The talk concludes by unveiling the uniqueness of photonic systems and the promising future prospects of its synergistic integration with emergent quantum materials, exemplified by van der Waals heterostructures. |