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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Small (Weinheim an Der Bergstrasse, Germany)

Self‐Assembly of a Colloidal Honeycomb Crystal in Silico for Topological Valley Photonics

  • Adam Walker1,2
  • Andreas Neophytou2,3
  • Piet J. M. Swinkels4
  • Angela Demetriadou5
  • Peter Schall4
  • Dwaipayan Chakrabarti2,6
6 affiliations
  1. 1EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Topological Design University of Birmingham Birmingham United Kingdom
  2. 2School of Chemistry University of Birmingham Birmingham United Kingdom
  3. 3Dipartimento di Fisica Sapienza Università di Roma Roma Italy
  4. 4School of Physics and Astronomy University of Birmingham Birmingham UK
  5. 5Institute of Physics University of Amsterdam Amsterdam The Netherlands
  6. 6International Institute for Sustainability with Knotted Chiral Meta Matter (WPI‐SKCM) Hiroshima University Hiroshima Japan
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Abstract

The quest to employ colloidal self‐assembly as a scalable means of fabricating photonic crystals with a complete photonic band gap at optical frequencies has proved challenging throughout the first quarter of the 21st century. Meanwhile, the field of topological photonics has emerged, presenting new, and largely unexploited, functionalities for self‐assembled colloidal materials. The robustness of topological photonic properties to defects that are practically unavoidable in self‐assembled colloidal structures appears to be especially attractive. Here, the self‐assembly of a colloidal honeycomb crystal is demonstrated in computer simulations, with an assembly strategy that not only suppresses the formation of real‐space topological defects observed in experiments but also results in topological photonic properties in reciprocal space. This assembly strategy promotes the emergence of long‐range order and allows for the breaking of spatial inversion symmetry with two distinct sub‐lattices. A sufficient dielectric contrast between the colloidal particles sitting on these two sub‐lattices is exploited to realize a valley‐Hall topological photonic phase, allowing for unidirectional propagation of circularly polarized light through waveguides composed of the designer crystals. The design rules are tested for their robustness to open the door to scalable fabrication of topological photonic devices via colloidal self‐assembly.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{walker2026selfassembly,
  title = {{Self‐Assembly of a Colloidal Honeycomb Crystal in Silico for Topological Valley Photonics}},
  author = {Adam Walker and Andreas Neophytou and Piet J. M. Swinkels and Angela Demetriadou and Peter Schall and Dwaipayan Chakrabarti},
  journal = {Small (Weinheim an Der Bergstrasse, Germany)},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1002/smll.75515},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.75515},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Self‐Assembly of a Colloidal Honeycomb Crystal in Silico for Topological Valley Photonics
AU  - Adam Walker
AU  - Andreas Neophytou
AU  - Piet J. M. Swinkels
AU  - Angela Demetriadou
AU  - Peter Schall
AU  - Dwaipayan Chakrabarti
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/04
JO  - Small (Weinheim an Der Bergstrasse, Germany)
DO  - 10.1002/smll.75515
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.75515
AB  - The quest to employ colloidal self‐assembly as a scalable means of fabricating photonic crystals with a complete photonic band gap at optical frequencies has proved challenging throughout the first quarter of the 21st century. Meanwhile, the field of topological photonics has emerged, presenting new, and largely unexploited, functionalities for self‐assembled colloidal materials. The robustness of topological photonic properties to defects that are practically unavoidable in self‐assembled colloidal structures appears to be especially attractive. Here, the self‐assembly of a colloidal honeycomb crystal is demonstrated in computer simulations, with an assembly strategy that not only suppresses the formation of real‐space topological defects observed in experiments but also results in topological photonic properties in reciprocal space. This assembly strategy promotes the emergence of long‐range order and allows for the breaking of spatial inversion symmetry with two distinct sub‐lattices. A sufficient dielectric contrast between the colloidal particles sitting on these two sub‐lattices is exploited to realize a valley‐Hall topological photonic phase, allowing for unidirectional propagation of circularly polarized light through waveguides composed of the designer crystals. The design rules are tested for their robustness to open the door to scalable fabrication of topological photonic devices via colloidal self‐assembly.
SN  - 1613-6810
SN  - 1613-6829
ER  -