Rostock 2019 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 36: Photonics II
Q 36.1: Talk
Wednesday, March 13, 2019, 14:00–14:15, S Gr. HS Maschb.
Observation of local symmetry in a photonic system — •Nora Schmitt1, Steffen Weimann1, Christian Morfonios2, Malte Röntgen2, Peter Schmelcher2,3, and Alexander Szameit1 — 1Institute of Physics, University of Rostock, Albert-Einstein-Str. 23, 18059 Rostock, Germany — 2Centre for Optical Quantum Technologies, University of Hamburg, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany — 3Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging, University of Hamburg, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany
The concept of local symmetry is a powerful tool in predicting complex transport phenomena in aperiodic structures. In contrast to the idealized scenario of global symmetries, instances of local symmetries abound in nature. Similarly, they can be incorporated into synthetic structures as novel approach to tailoring global material properties. The effect of local symmetries on the dynamics of light propagation in waveguide arrays governed by a Schrödinger equation is readily described by a non-local discrete continuity formalism. However, the experimental demonstration of this mechanism is elusive so far. In our work, we show how non-local boundary currents and non-local charges can be retrieved from intensity-only measurements, and verify that they in fact satisfy the non-local continuity equation. We fabricated representative examples of locally symmetric, globally symmetric and fully non-symmetric configurations in fs laser-written photonic arrays and probed the corresponding system dynamics via single-site excitation. Our approach of evaluating the non-local continuity equation provides a method to distinguish all three types of structures.