Photonic Chern insulators from two-dimensional atomic lattices interacting with a single surface plasmon polariton

摘要

We study the polaritonic band structure of two-dimensional atomic lattices coupled to a single excitation of a surface plasmon polariton mode. We show the possibility of realizing topological gaps with different Chern numbers by having resonant atomic transitions to excited states with different angular momentum. We employ a computational method based on the recently proposed Dirichlet-to-Neumann map technique, which accurately models non-Markovian dynamics, as well as interactions involving higher-order electric and magnetic multipole transitions. We design topologically robust edge states which are used to achieve unidirectional emission and nonreciprocal transmission of single photons. We also point out the challenges in realizing bands with higher Chern numbers in such systems.