Topological space-time waves in complex channels

Abstract

Structured light in space and time has become a powerful playground in which to explore the fundamental physics of wave systems, while simultaneously introducing new exotic forms of light, from spatio-temporal vortices to toroidal pulses of light. Yet their creation remains restricted by complex optical systems while directly observing their evolution in arbitrary channels remains elusive, complicated by the interplay of dispersion and diffraction and exacerbated by the lack of suitable detection tools. Here we create topological space-time beams in a single step by a resonant response of a symmetry-broken metasurface, mixing spatial, temporal and polarisation degrees of freedom in a single microwave field. Our realisation in the microwave regime allows us to directly observe their dynamics in arbitrary channels, from free-space to complex random media, showing the preservation of topology while the foundational degrees of freedom are scrambled. We use our control to show how to unscramble the space-time properties for the first crosstalk-free transmission of space-time waves. Our work advances the physics of space-time waves, introduces a new toolkit for their creation and control, and offers an exciting roadmap to their exploitation in real-world scenarios, e.g., for robust communications through noisy channels.