The orbital degrees of freedom play a pivotal role in understanding fundamental phenomena in solid-state materials as well as exotic quantum states of matter including orbital superfluidity and topological semimetals....The orbital degrees of freedom play a pivotal role in understanding fundamental phenomena in solid-state materials as well as exotic quantum states of matter including orbital superfluidity and topological semimetals.Despite tremendous efforts in engineering synthetic cold-atom,as well as electronic and photonic lattices to explore orbital physics,thus far high orbitals in an important class of materials,namely,higher-order topological insulators(HOTIs),have not been realized.Here,we demonstrate p-orbital corner states in a photonic HOTI,unveiling their underlying topological invariant,symmetry protection,and nonlinearity-induced dynamical rotation.In a Kagome-type HOTI,we find that the topological protection of p-orbital corner states demands an orbital-hopping symmetry in addition to generalized chiral symmetry.Due to orbital hybridization,nontrivial topology of the p-orbital HOTI is“hidden”if bulk polarization is used as the topological invariant,but well manifested by the generalized winding number.Our work opens a pathway for the exploration of intriguing orbital phenomena mediated by higher-band topology applicable to a broad spectrum of systems.展开更多
基金the National Key R&D Program of China(2022YFA1404800)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(12134006,12274242)+4 种基金the Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin(21JCJQJC00050)the QuantiXLie Center of Excellence,a project co-financed by the Croatian Government and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund the Competitiveness and Cohesion Operational Programme(KK.01.1.1.01.0004)the 66 Postdoctoral Science Grant of Chinathe NSERC Discovery Grantthe Canada Research Chair Programs.
文摘The orbital degrees of freedom play a pivotal role in understanding fundamental phenomena in solid-state materials as well as exotic quantum states of matter including orbital superfluidity and topological semimetals.Despite tremendous efforts in engineering synthetic cold-atom,as well as electronic and photonic lattices to explore orbital physics,thus far high orbitals in an important class of materials,namely,higher-order topological insulators(HOTIs),have not been realized.Here,we demonstrate p-orbital corner states in a photonic HOTI,unveiling their underlying topological invariant,symmetry protection,and nonlinearity-induced dynamical rotation.In a Kagome-type HOTI,we find that the topological protection of p-orbital corner states demands an orbital-hopping symmetry in addition to generalized chiral symmetry.Due to orbital hybridization,nontrivial topology of the p-orbital HOTI is“hidden”if bulk polarization is used as the topological invariant,but well manifested by the generalized winding number.Our work opens a pathway for the exploration of intriguing orbital phenomena mediated by higher-band topology applicable to a broad spectrum of systems.
