Experimental observation of bulk and edge transport in photonic Lieb lattices

Abstract

We analyze the transport of light in the bulk and at the edge of photonic Lieb lattices, whose unique feature is the existence of a flat band representing stationary states in the middle of the band structure that can form localized bulk states. We find that transport in bulk Lieb lattices is significantly affected by the particular excitation site within the unit cell, due to overlap with the flat band states. Additionally, we demonstrate the existence of new edge states in anisotropic Lieb lattices. These states arise due to a virtual defect at the lattice edges and are not described by the standard tight-binding model.