Valley surface-wave photonic crystal and its bulk/edge transport

The valley Hall effect and topological valley edge states are two fundamental properties in gapped valleytronic materials, such as MoS₂ and biased bilayer graphene. Such properties have paved the way for applications in valleytronics. Here, the authors experimentally demonstrate a valley surface-wave photonic crystal on a single metal surface, as the photonic analog of the valley-Hall topological insulator phase. The photonic valley-Hall effect with valley-chirality locked beam splitting, and topological valley-polarized edge states, are demonstrated for the first time on a photonic platform.