Seminar

Photonics plays a pivotal role in advancing the field of topological insulators by enabling the synthetic preparation of these materials, which may not exist naturally. The quasi-one-dimensional systems (quasi-1D), which can be fabricated through Photonics, show more exotic properties in the presence of a time-dependent periodic driving. These periodically driven systems are studied within the Floquet framework. The Floquet formalism influences the static system by breaking certain symmetries and introducing new topological properties in the system. I present a theoretical study of Floquet quasi-1D systems formed via the simplest one-dimensional topological insulator, the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model (SSH). As an undriven quasi-1D system, I chose two quasi-1D systems: extended SSH (E-SSH) and N-stacked SSH models. The periodically driven E-SSH model exhibits topological properties with a higher Chern number (|C|>1). On the other hand, I investigate the topological properties of the N stacked SSH model, a model for 2D weak topological insulators, by systematically breaking symmetries. This weak topological insulator becomes a Chern insulator with broken chiral and time-reversal symmetry. The N stacked SSH model also exhibits topological properties with higher Chern numbers (|C|>1) in the presence of circularly polarized light. I will also discuss some of the potential future directions