We show that dynamic photonic structures, where refractive index of the structure is modulated as a function of time, offers a wide ranges of possibilities for exploration of physics and applications of light. In particular, dynamic photonic structures naturally break reciprocity. With proper design such photonic structure can then be used to achieve complete optical isolation and to completely reproduce magneto-optical effects without the use of gyrotropic materials. Moreover, the phase of the modulation corresponds to an effective magnetic gauge potential for photons, through which one can explore a wide variety of fundamental physics effects of synthetic magnetic field using photons. Finally, such dynamic photonic structure can be used to explore physics, especially topological physics, in dimensions that are higher than the physical dimension of the structure, leading to intriguing possibilities in manipulation of the frequencies of light in non-trivial ways.
Shanhui Fan is a Professor of Electrical Engineering, a Professor of Applied Physics (by courtesy), a Senior Fellow of the Precourt Institute for Energy, and the Director of the Edward L. Ginzton Laboratory, at the Stanford University. He received his Ph. D in 1997 in theoretical condensed matter physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research interests are in fundamental studies of solid state and photonic structures and devices, especially photonic crystals, plasmonics, and meta-materials, and applications of these structures in energy and information technology applications. He has published over 450 refereed journal articles that were cited over 60,000 times according to Google Scholar, has given over 330 plenary/keynote/invited talks, and was granted 62 US patents. Prof. Fan received a National Science Foundation Career Award (2002), a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering (2003), the National Academy of Sciences W. O. Baker Award for Initiative in Research (2007), the Adolph Lomb Medal from the Optical Society of America (2007), and a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (2017). He is a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher in Physics since 2015, a Fellow of the IEEE, the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, and the SPIE.