Electrically Tunable and Reconfigurable Topological Edge State Lasers

Abstract

We report an actively tunable topological edge mode laser in a one-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) laser chain, where the SSH chain is realized in an electrically-injected Fabry-Perot (FP) laser chain. A non-Hermitian SSH model is developed to investigate the SSH laser chain with tunable active topological defect. We theoretically demonstrate topological edge mode phase transition in the SSH laser chain. The phase transition manifested in the tight binding SSH laser chain is observed experimentally and agreed well with the theoretical predictions. Finally, by electronically tuning the gain and loss, a lossy topological mode is obtained, and lasing is experimentally observed in the lossy time-reversal configuration. This work presents a versatile platform to investigate novel concepts, such as topological mode, for main stream photonic applications.