Topological one-way fiber of second Chern number

Abstract

Optical fiber is a ubiquitous and indispensable component in communications, sensing, biomedicine and many other lightwave technologies and applications. Here we propose topological one-way fibers to remove two fundamental mechanisms that limit fiber performance: scattering and reflection. We design three-dimensional~(3D) photonic crystal fibers, inside which photons propagate only in one direction, that are completely immune to Rayleigh and Mie scatterings and significantly suppress the nonlinear Brillouin and Raman scatterings. A one-way fiber is also free from Fresnel reflection, naturally eliminating the needs for fiber isolators. Our finding is enabled by the recently discovered Weyl points in a double-gyroid~(DG) photonic crystal. By annihilating two Weyl points by supercell modulation in a magnetic DG, we obtain the photonic analogue of the 3D quantum Hall phase with a non-zero first Chern number~($C_1$). When the modulation becomes helixes, one-way fiber modes develop along the winding axis, with the number of modes determined by the spatial frequency of the helix. These single-polarization single-mode and multi-mode one-way fibers, having nearly identical group and phase velocities, are topologically-protected by the second Chern number~($C_2$) in the 4D parameter space of the 3D wavevectors plus the winding angle of the helixes. This work suggests a unique way to utilize higher-dimensional topological physics without resorting to artificial dimensions.