Geometric-anisotropy induced high-order topological insulators in nonsymmorphic photonic crystals

Abstract: To a significant extent, the rich physical properties of photonic crystals are determined by the underlying geometry, in which the composed symmetry operators and their combinations contribute to the unique topological invariant to characterize the topological phases. Particularly, the inter- and intra-coupling modulation in the two-dimensional (2D) Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model yields the topological phase transition, and exhibit first-order edge localized states and second-order corner localized corner states. In this work, we use the geometric anisotropy into the 2D square lattice composed of four rectangle blocks. We show a variety of topological phase transitions in designed nonsymmorphic photonic crystals (PCs) and these transitions shall be understood in terms of the Zak phase and Chern number in synthetic space, as well as the pseudospin-2 concept, combinationally. Furthermore, Zak phase winding in the periodic synthetic parameter space yields high-order Chern number and double interface states. Based on the extended Zak phase and pseudo-spin Hall effect, higher-order topological insulator is constructed in the PC system. The intriguing and abundant topological features are also sustained in the corresponding three-dimensional PC slab, which makes it a very interesting platform to control the flow of optical signals.