Electromagnetic-dual metasurfaces for topological states along a one-dimensional interface

Abstract: The discovery of topological insulators has rapidly been followed by the advent of their photonic analogues, motivated by the prospect of backscattering-immune light propagation. So far, however, implementations have mainly relied on engineering bulk modes in photonic crystals and waveguide arrays in two-dimensional systems, which closely mimic their electronic counterparts. In addition, metamaterials-based implementations subject to electromagnetic duality and bianisotropy conditions suffer from intricate designs and narrow operating bandwidths. Here, it is shown that symmetry-protected topological states akin to the quantum spin-Hall effect can be realized in a straightforward manner by coupling surface modes over metasurfaces of complementary electromagnetic responses. Specifically, stacking unit cells of such metasurfaces directly results in double Dirac cones of degenerate transverse-electric and transverse-magnetic modes, which break into a wide non-trivial bandgap at small inter-layer separation. Consequently, the ultrathin structure supports robust gapless edge states, which are confined along a one-dimensional line rather than a surface interface, as demonstrated at microwave frequencies by near field imaging. The simplicity and versatility of the proposed approach proves attractive as a tabletop platform for the study of classical topological phases, as well as for applications benefiting the compactness of metasurfaces and the potential of topological insulators.