Demonstration of topological wireless power transfer

Recent advances in non-radiative wireless power transfer(WPT)technique essentially relying on magnetic resonance and near-field coupling have successfully enabled a wide range of applications.However,WPT systems based on double resonators are severely limited to short-or mid-range distance,due to the deteriorating efficiency and power with long transfer distance.WPT systems based on multi-relay resonators can overcome this problem,which,however,suffer from sensitivity to perturbations and fabrication imperfections.Here,we experimentally demonstrate a concept of topological wireless power transfer(TWPT),where energy is transferred efficiently via the near-field coupling between two topological edge states localized at the ends of a one-dimensional radiowave topological insulator.Such a TWPT system can be modelled as a parity-time-symmetric Su-Schrieffer-Heeger(SSH)chain with complex boundary potentials.Besides,the coil configurations are judiciously designed,which significantly suppress the unwanted cross-couplings between nonadjacent coils that could break the chiral symmetry of the SSH chain.By tuning the inter-and intra-cell coupling strengths,we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate high energy transfer efficiency near the exceptional point of the topological edge states,even in the presence of disorder.The combination of topological metamaterials,non-Hermitian physics,and WPT techniques could promise a variety of robust,efficient WPT applications over long distances in electronics,transportation,and industry.

Unconventional Weyl exceptional contours in non-Hermitian photonic continua

Unconventional Weyl points with topological charges higher than 1 can transform into various complex unconventional Weyl exceptional contours under non-Hermitian perturbations.However,theoretical studies of these exceptional contours have been limited to tight-binding models.Here,we propose to realize unconventional Weyl exceptional contours in photonic continua—non-Hermitian anisotropic chiral plasma,based on ab initio calculation by Maxwell’s equations.By perturbing in-plane permittivity,an unconventional Weyl point can transform into a quadratic Weyl exceptional ring,a type I Weyl exceptional chain with one chain point,a type II Weyl exceptional chain with two chain points,or other forms.Realistic metamaterials with effective constitutive parameters are proposed to implement these unconventional Weyl exceptional contours.Our work paves a way toward exploration of exotic physics of unconventional Weyl exceptional contours in non-Hermitian topological photonic continua.

Negative refraction of ultra-squeezed in-plane hyperbolic designer polaritons

The in-plane negative refraction of high-momentum(i.e.,high-k)photonic modes could enable many applications such as imaging,focusing,and waveguiding in a planar platform at deep-subwavelength scales.However,its practical implementation in experiments remains elusive so far.Here we propose a class of hyperbolic metasurfaces,which is characterized by an anisotropic magnetic sheet conductivity and can support the in-plane ultrahigh-k magnetic designer polaritons.Based on such metasurfaces,we report the experimental observation of the all-angle negative refraction of designer polaritons at extremely deep-subwavelength scales.Moreover,we directly visualize the designer polaritons with hyperbolic dispersions.Importantly,for these hyperbolic polaritons,we find that their squeezing factor is ultra-large.To be specific,it can be up to 129 in the experiments,an ultra-high value exceeding those in naturally hyperbolic materials.This work may pave a way toward exploring the extremely high confinement and unusual propagation of magnetic designer polaritons over monolayer or twisted bilayer hyperbolic metasurfaces.