Photonic Pseudomagnetism and Landau Levels

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Mikael Rechtsman, Penn State
• Friday 09 May 2025, 14:00-15:00
• Seminar Room 3, RDC.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Gaurav.

When electrons moving in a two-dimensional plane are subject to a perpendicular magnetic field they move in circles called cyclotron orbits as a result of the Lorentz force. Treated quantum mechanically, these orbits become quantized like the orbitals of an atom, forming highly degenerate states called Landau levels. In this talk, I will show how we made photons “feel” a magnetic field and thus form Landau levels in a photonic crystal, despite the fact that photons carry no charge and thus cannot experience the Lorentz force. This increases the strength of interaction between light and matter, which has implications in quantum optics and integrated photonics. Time permitting, I will discuss the related topic of how edge states in a “Chern insulator” photonic crystal can be used to slow down light in a photonic chip over a wide bandwidth.

This talk is part of the Theory of Condensed Matter series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Cavendish Laboratory Seminars
• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise
• Combined TCM Seminars and TCM blackboard seminar listing
• Featured lists
• Lennard-Jones Centre external
• ME Seminar
• Neurons, Fake News, DNA and your iPhone: The Mathematics of Information
• PMRFPS's
• School of Physical Sciences
• Seminar Room 3, RDC
• Theory of Condensed Matter
• Thin Film Magnetic Talks
• few29

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.