Quantum Institute: Visitor Schedule

The Quantum Lunch is regularly held on Thursdays in the Theoretical Division Conference Room, TA-3, Building 123, Room 121.

The organizing committee includes Malcolm Boshier (P-21), Adolfo del Campo (T-4 & CNLS), Michael Di Rosa (C-PCS), Armin Rahmanisisan (T-4 & CNLS), Changhyun Ryu (P-21) , Nikolai Sinitsyn (T-4), Rolando Somma (T-4), Christopher Ticknor (T-1), and Wojciech Zurek (T-4).

For more information, or to nominate a speaker, contact Adolfo del Campo.

To add your name to the Quantum Lunch email list, contact Ellie Vigil.

Thursday May 15, 2014
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM

Speaker: Torsten Karzig (California Institute of Technology)

Technical Host: Armin Rahmani

TOPIC: Topological polaritons

Abstract
We study the formation of topological polaritons from guided photons coupled to semiconductor excitons. Oscillating electromagnetic fields can turn a trivial electronic band structure into a Floquet topological insulator. Here we invert this principle and show that it is possible to create topological states of photons by mixing them with electronic degrees of freedom. Taken separately the photons and excitons are trivial. The combination of them, however, allows to create a new topological state, a topological polariton. We discuss the necessary ingredients to lend the polaritons a non-trivial topology through a "winding" exciton-photon coupling. One hallmark signature of the topological polaritons are chiral edge modes which allow for unidirectional photon propagation as a part of the exciton-photon edge mode.