Hybrid plasmonic valley-Hall topological insulators

Area of Science:

• Photonics and Nanotechnology
• Condensed Matter Physics

Background:

• Conventional photonic topological insulators are limited by the diffraction limit, hindering device miniaturization and performance.
• Dielectric nature of traditional designs restricts light-matter interaction and device sensitivity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel valley-Hall hybrid plasmonic topological insulator.
• To overcome the diffraction limit in photonic devices for enhanced performance.

Main Methods:

• Exploiting the coupling between surface plasmon oscillations and dielectric photonic crystal modes.
• Utilizing a hybrid plasmonic topological insulator design.

Main Results:

• Achieved sub-diffraction vertical confinement of light.
• Generated deep-subwavelength chiral edge states.
• Demonstrated robust light guidance along disordered Z-shaped topological boundaries with low propagation loss.

Conclusions:

• The hybrid plasmonic topological insulator overcomes diffraction limits, enabling extreme light manipulation on-chip.
• This platform maximizes light-matter interaction for compact optical modulators, molecular sensors, and nanophotonic/quantum devices.