Topological resonators based on hexagonal-star valley photonic crystals

Abstract

In valley photonic crystals, topological edge states can be gained by breaking the spatial inversion symmetry without breaking time-reversal symmetry or creating pseudo-spin structures, making highly unidirectional light transmission easy to achieve. This paper presents a novel physical model of a hexagonal-star valley photonic crystal. Simulations based on the finite element method (FEM) are performed to investigate the propagation of TM polarized mode and its application to ring resonators. The results show that such a topologically triangular ring resonator exhibits an optimum quality factor Q of about 1.25 × 104, and Q has a maximum value for both frequency and the cavity length L. Our findings are expected to have significant implications for developing topological lasers and wavelength division multiplexers.