New design makes light work of topological insulator

“Bimorphic topological insulators introduce a new paradigm shift in the design of photonic circuitry by enabling secure transport of light packets with minimal losses.”Georgios Pyrialakos, University of Central Florida

Researchers at the University of Central Florida (UCF) are developing new photonic materials that could lead to the development of low power, ultra-fast, light-based computing. These unique materials, known as topological insulators, are like wires that have been turned inside out, where the current runs along the outside and the interior is insulated.

Topological insulators are important because they could be used in circuit designs that allow for more processing power to be crammed into a single space without generating heat, thus avoiding the overheating problem faced by today’s ever-shrinking electrical circuits.

In a paper in Nature Materials, the researchers report a new approach to creating topological insulators by employing a novel chained, honeycomb-lattice design. They laser-etched this chained, honeycomb design into a sample of silica, the material commonly used to make photonic circuits. Nodes in the design allow the researchers to modulate the current without bending or stretching the photonic wires, an essential feature needed for controlling the flow of light and thus information in a circuit.

This new photonic material overcomes drawbacks of contemporary topological designs that offer fewer features and less control, while supporting much longer propagation lengths for information packets by minimizing power losses. The researchers envision that the new design approach introduced by these bimorphic topological insulators will lead to a departure from traditional modulation techniques, bringing the technology of light-based computing one step closer to reality.

Topological insulators could also one day lead to quantum computing, as their features could be used to protect and harness fragile quantum information bits, thereby allowing processing power hundreds of millions of times faster than today’s conventional computers.

The researchers confirmed their findings using advanced imaging techniques and numerical simulations.

“Bimorphic topological insulators introduce a new paradigm shift in the design of photonic circuitry by enabling secure transport of light packets with minimal losses,” says Georgios Pyrialakos, a postdoctoral researcher in UCF’s College of Optics and Photonics and the paper’s lead author.

Next steps for the research include incorporating nonlinear materials into the lattice that could allow the active control of topological regions, thus creating custom pathways for light packets, says Demetrios Christodoulides, a professor in UCF’s College of Optics and Photonics and a co-author of the paper.

This story is adapted from material from the University of Central Florida, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier. Link to original source.