Real higher-order Weyl photonic crystal

Yuang Pan, Chaoxi Cui, Qiaolu Chen, Fujia Chen, Li Zhang, Yudong Ren, Ning Han, Wenhao Li, Xinrui Li, Zhi Ming Yu*, Hongsheng Chen*, Yihao Yang*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Higher-order Weyl semimetals are a family of recently predicted topological phases simultaneously showcasing unconventional properties derived from Weyl points, such as chiral anomaly, and multidimensional topological phenomena originating from higher-order topology. The higher-order Weyl semimetal phases, with their higher-order topology arising from quantized dipole or quadrupole bulk polarizations, have been demonstrated in phononics and circuits. Here, we experimentally discover a class of higher-order Weyl semimetal phase in a three-dimensional photonic crystal (PhC), exhibiting the concurrence of the surface and hinge Fermi arcs from the nonzero Chern number and the nontrivial generalized real Chern number, respectively, coined a real higher-order Weyl PhC. Notably, the projected two-dimensional subsystem with kz = 0 is a real Chern insulator, belonging to the Stiefel-Whitney class with real Bloch wavefunctions, which is distinguished fundamentally from the Chern class with complex Bloch wavefunctions. Our work offers an ideal photonic platform for exploring potential applications and material properties associated with the higher-order Weyl points and the Stiefel-Whitney class of topological phases.

Original languageEnglish
Article number6636
JournalNature Communications
Volume14
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2023

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