IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v578y2020i7794d10.1038_s41586-020-1981-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Electrically pumped topological laser with valley edge modes

Author

Listed:
  • Yongquan Zeng

    (Nanyang Technological University)

  • Udvas Chattopadhyay

    (Nanyang Technological University)

  • Bofeng Zhu

    (Nanyang Technological University)

  • Bo Qiang

    (Nanyang Technological University
    Nanyang Technological University)

  • Jinghao Li

    (Nanyang Technological University)

  • Yuhao Jin

    (Nanyang Technological University)

  • Lianhe Li

    (University of Leeds)

  • Alexander Giles Davies

    (University of Leeds)

  • Edmund Harold Linfield

    (University of Leeds)

  • Baile Zhang

    (Nanyang Technological University)

  • Yidong Chong

    (Nanyang Technological University)

  • Qi Jie Wang

    (Nanyang Technological University
    Nanyang Technological University)

Abstract

Quantum cascade lasers are compact, electrically pumped light sources in the technologically important mid-infrared and terahertz region of the electromagnetic spectrum1,2. Recently, the concept of topology3 has been expanded from condensed matter physics into photonics4, giving rise to a new type of lasing5–8 using topologically protected photonic modes that can efficiently bypass corners and defects4. Previous demonstrations of topological lasers have required an external laser source for optical pumping and have operated in the conventional optical frequency regime5–8. Here we demonstrate an electrically pumped terahertz quantum cascade laser based on topologically protected valley edge states9–11. Unlike topological lasers that rely on large-scale features to impart topological protection, our compact design makes use of the valley degree of freedom in photonic crystals10,11, analogous to two-dimensional gapped valleytronic materials12. Lasing with regularly spaced emission peaks occurs in a sharp-cornered triangular cavity, even if perturbations are introduced into the underlying structure, owing to the existence of topologically protected valley edge states that circulate around the cavity without experiencing localization. We probe the properties of the topological lasing modes by adding different outcouplers to the topological cavity. The laser based on valley edge states may open routes to the practical use of topological protection in electrically driven laser sources.

Suggested Citation

  • Yongquan Zeng & Udvas Chattopadhyay & Bofeng Zhu & Bo Qiang & Jinghao Li & Yuhao Jin & Lianhe Li & Alexander Giles Davies & Edmund Harold Linfield & Baile Zhang & Yidong Chong & Qi Jie Wang, 2020. "Electrically pumped topological laser with valley edge modes," Nature, Nature, vol. 578(7794), pages 246-250, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:578:y:2020:i:7794:d:10.1038_s41586-020-1981-x
    DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-1981-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-1981-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41586-020-1981-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hengjiang Ren & Tirth Shah & Hannes Pfeifer & Christian Brendel & Vittorio Peano & Florian Marquardt & Oskar Painter, 2022. "Topological phonon transport in an optomechanical system," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-7, December.
    2. Song Han & Yunda Chua & Yongquan Zeng & Bofeng Zhu & Chongwu Wang & Bo Qiang & Yuhao Jin & Qian Wang & Lianhe Li & Alexander Giles Davies & Edmund Harold Linfield & Yidong Chong & Baile Zhang & Qi Jie, 2023. "Photonic Majorana quantum cascade laser with polarization-winding emission," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-7, December.
    3. Mudi Wang & Qiyun Ma & Shan Liu & Ruo-Yang Zhang & Lei Zhang & Manzhu Ke & Zhengyou Liu & C. T. Chan, 2022. "Observation of boundary induced chiral anomaly bulk states and their transport properties," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    4. Jingyi Tian & Qi Ying Tan & Yutao Wang & Yihao Yang & Guanghui Yuan & Giorgio Adamo & Cesare Soci, 2023. "Perovskite quantum dot one-dimensional topological laser," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-7, December.
    5. Jiewei Chen & Yue Zhou & Jianmin Yan & Jidong Liu & Lin Xu & Jingli Wang & Tianqing Wan & Yuhui He & Wenjing Zhang & Yang Chai, 2022. "Room-temperature valley transistors for low-power neuromorphic computing," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    6. Qiuyan Zhou & Jien Wu & Zhenhang Pu & Jiuyang Lu & Xueqin Huang & Weiyin Deng & Manzhu Ke & Zhengyou Liu, 2023. "Observation of geometry-dependent skin effect in non-Hermitian phononic crystals with exceptional points," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.
    7. Tang, Qian & Zhang, Yiqi & Kartashov, Yaroslav V. & Li, Yongdong & Konotop, Vladimir V., 2022. "Vector valley Hall edge solitons in superhoneycomb lattices," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    8. Abhishek Kumar & Manoj Gupta & Prakash Pitchappa & Nan Wang & Pascal Szriftgiser & Guillaume Ducournau & Ranjan Singh, 2022. "Phototunable chip-scale topological photonics: 160 Gbps waveguide and demultiplexer for THz 6G communication," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    9. Midya Parto & Christian Leefmans & James Williams & Franco Nori & Alireza Marandi, 2023. "Non-Abelian effects in dissipative photonic topological lattices," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.
    10. Junhong Liu & Yunfei Xu & Rusong Li & Yongqiang Sun & Kaiyao Xin & Jinchuan Zhang & Quanyong Lu & Ning Zhuo & Junqi Liu & Lijun Wang & Fengmin Cheng & Shuman Liu & Fengqi Liu & Shenqiang Zhai, 2024. "High-power electrically pumped terahertz topological laser based on a surface metallic Dirac-vortex cavity," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-7, December.
    11. Lei Huang & Lu He & Weixuan Zhang & Huizhen Zhang & Dongning Liu & Xue Feng & Fang Liu & Kaiyu Cui & Yidong Huang & Wei Zhang & Xiangdong Zhang, 2024. "Hyperbolic photonic topological insulators," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:578:y:2020:i:7794:d:10.1038_s41586-020-1981-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.