title: Selective enhancement of topologically induced interface states in a dielectric resonator chain.
abstract: The recent realization of topological phases in insulators and superconductors has advanced the search for robust quantum technologies. The prospect to implement the underlying topological features controllably has given incentive to explore optical platforms for analogous realizations. Here we realize a topologically induced defect state in a chain of dielectric microwave resonators and show that the functionality of the system can be enhanced by supplementing topological protection with non-hermitian symmetries that do not have an electronic counterpart. We draw on a characteristic topological feature of the defect state, namely, that it breaks a sublattice symmetry. This isolates the state from losses that respect parity-time symmetry, which enhances its visibility relative to all other states both in the frequency and in the time domain. This mode selection mechanism naturally carries over to a wide range of topological and parity-time symmetric optical platforms, including couplers, rectifiers and lasers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YB, UK.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Poli
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physique de la Matière Condensée, CNRS UMR 7336, Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, 06100 Nice, France.
authors.forename: Matthieu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bellec
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physique de la Matière Condensée, CNRS UMR 7336, Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, 06100 Nice, France.
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Kuhl
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physique de la Matière Condensée, CNRS UMR 7336, Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, 06100 Nice, France.
authors.forename: Fabrice
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mortessagne
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YB, UK.
authors.forename: Henning
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schomerus
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