Observation of Topological Transition in Floquet Non-Hermitian Skin Effects in Silicon Photonics

Non-Hermitian physics has greatly enriched our understanding of nonequilibrium phenomena and uncovered novel effects such as the non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE) that has profoundly revolutionized the field. NHSE has been predicted in systems with nonreciprocal couplings which, however, are challenging to realize in experiments. Without nonreciprocal couplings, the NHSE can also emerge in systems with coexisting gauge fields and loss or gain (e.g., in Floquet non-Hermitian systems). However, such Floquet NHSE remains largely unexplored in experiments. Here, we realize the Floquet NHSEs in periodically modulated optical waveguides integrated on a silicon photonic platform. By engineering the artificial gauge fields induced by the periodical modulation, we observe various Floquet NHSE phases and unveil their rich topological transitions. Remarkably, we discover the transitions between the unipolar NHSE phases and an unconventional bipolar NHSE phase, which is accompanied by the directional reversal of the NHSEs. The underlying physics is revealed by the band winding in complex quasienergy space which undergoes a topology change from isolated loops with the same winding to linked loops with opposite windings. Our work unfolds a new route toward Floquet NHSEs originating from the interplay between gauge fields and dissipation effects, and thus offers fundamentally new ways for steering light and other waves.