Experimental Observation of Large Chern Numbers in Photonic Crystals.

Despite great interest in the quantum anomalous Hall phase and its analogs, all experimental studies in electronic and bosonic systems have been limited to a Chern number of one. Here, we perform microwave transmission measurements in the bulk and at the edge of ferrimagnetic photonic crystals. Band gaps with large Chern numbers of 2, 3, and 4 are present in the experimental results, which show excellent agreement with theory. We measure the mode profiles and Fourier transform them to produce dispersion relations of the edge modes, whose number and direction match our Chern number calculations.

Multimode one-way waveguides of large Chern numbers.

Current experimental realizations of the quantum anomalous Hall phase in both electronic and photonic systems have been limited to a Chern number of one. In photonics, this corresponds to a single-mode one-way edge waveguide. Here, we predict quantum anomalous Hall phases in photonic crystals with large Chern numbers of 2, 3, and 4. These new topological phases were found by simultaneously gapping multiple Dirac and quadratic points. We demonstrate a continuously tunable power splitter as a possible application of multimode one-way waveguides. All our findings are readily realizable at microwave frequencies.