Tunable and programmable topological valley transport in photonic crystals with liquid crystals

Topological valley transport in photonic crystals (PCs) has attracted great attention owing to its edge modes immune to backscattering. However, flexibly dynamically controlling and reconfiguring the pathway of the topological one-way propagation is still challenging. Here, we propose a tunable and programmable valley PC structure based on nematic liquid crystals (LCs). Inversion symmetry breaking and topological transition are implemented through controlling the relative permittivity of the LC cells. Topological protection of valley edge states and valley-locked beam splitting are demonstrated. Moreover, the LC-based PC can be discretized to a number of supercells, each of which can be coded with “0” or “1”. The wave propagation pathway can be dynamically reconfigured by programming different coding patterns.