title: Robust reconfigurable electromagnetic pathways within a photonic topological insulator.
abstract: The discovery of topological photonic states has revolutionized our understanding of electromagnetic propagation and scattering. Endowed with topological robustness, photonic edge modes are not reflected from structural imperfections and disordered regions. Here we demonstrate robust propagation along reconfigurable pathways defined by synthetic gauge fields within a topological photonic metacrystal. The flow of microwave radiation in helical edge modes following arbitrary contours of the synthetic gauge field between bianisotropic metacrystal domains is unimpeded. This is demonstrated in measurements of the spectrum of transmission and time delay along the topological domain walls. These results provide a framework for freely steering electromagnetic radiation within photonic structures.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Queens College of the City University of New York, Queens, New York 11367, USA.|The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, New York 10016, USA.
authors.forename: Xiaojun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Queens College of the City University of New York, Queens, New York 11367, USA.
authors.forename: Camille
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jouvaud
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Queens College of the City University of New York, Queens, New York 11367, USA.|The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, New York 10016, USA.
authors.forename: Xiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ni
authors.affiliation: Microelectronics Research Center, Cockrell School of Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78758, USA.
authors.forename: S Hossein
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Mousavi
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Queens College of the City University of New York, Queens, New York 11367, USA.|The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, New York 10016, USA.
authors.forename: Azriel Z
authors.initials: AZ
authors.lastname: Genack
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Queens College of the City University of New York, Queens, New York 11367, USA.|The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, New York 10016, USA.
authors.forename: Alexander B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Khanikaev