Theory seminar
Exploration of Hofstadter's Butterfly in Optical Ring Resonators
Speaker: Robert Dimitrov (Y3)
Date: Wednesday 17 April 2024
Time: 15:00
Venue: N/3.28
Hofstadter’s Butterfly is a fractal energy spectrum that appears due to the connection between periodic potential and magnetic field, which has been of great interest in the physics community. The talk shall cover how this intriguing pattern can be shown from optical ring resonators through the use of a light source around the resonator structure and multiplying this with more than one resonator. Additionally, the talk shall also delve into the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, which helps the understanding of topological phases of matter. Through the modification of the coupling parameter between resonators in the simulation, we can model topological edge and bulk modes the 1D and 2D SSH systems. In this talk, the numerical results based on the tight-binding model and finite-difference time-domain method will be discussed focusing on how the coupling coefficients between ring resonators are tuned and they are used for the 1D and 2D arrays. The results shall be showcased from the simulation which demonstrate the successful observation of Hofstadter’s Butterfly and the SSH model in both 1D and 2D configurations. This talk will provide valuable insights into the power of computational methods in the study of complex systems such as the coupled ring resonators and their applications in the field of topological photonics.