Dynamic Optical Superlattices with Topological Bands

Stefan K. Baur; Monika H. Schleier-Smith; Nigel R. Cooper

doi:10.1103/physreva.89.051605

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arXiv · 1402.3295

Dynamic Optical Superlattices with Topological Bands

Stefan K. Baur·Monika H. Schleier-Smith·Nigel R. Cooper

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Abstract

We introduce an all-optical approach to producing high-flux synthetic magnetic fields for neutral atoms or molecules by designing intrinsically time-periodic optical superlattices. A single laser source, modulated to generate two frequencies, suffices to create dynamically modulated interference patterns which have topological Floquet energy bands. In particular, we propose a simple laser setup that realizes a tight-binding model with uniform flux per plaquette and well-separated Chern bands. Our method relies only on the particles' scalar polarizability and far detuned light.

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Stefan K. Baur, Monika H. Schleier-Smith, Nigel R. Cooper. 2014-06-02. Dynamic Optical Superlattices with Topological Bands. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.89.051605

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