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Published on: February 28, 2016
Loss-Driven Topological Transitions in Lasing
Grazia Salerno1, Rebecca Heilmann1, Kristian Arjas1
1Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University School of Science, P.O. Box 15100, Aalto FI-00076, Finland.
Abstract:
We experimentally observe lasing in a hexamer plasmonic lattice and find that, when tuning the scale of the unit cell, the polarization properties of the emission change. By a theoretical analysis, we identify the lasing modes as quasi-bound-states in continuum of topological charges of zero, one, or two. A T-matrix simulation of the structure reveals that the mode quality (Q) factors depend on the scale of the unit cell, with highest-Q modes favored by lasing. The system thus shows a loss-driven transition between lasing in modes of trivial and high-order topological charge.
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