Energy density as a probe of band representations in photonic crystals

Abstract

Topological quantum chemistry (TQC) has recently emerged as an instrumental tool to characterize the topological nature of both fermionic and bosonic band structures. TQC is based on the study of band representations and the localization of maximally localized Wannier functions. In this article, we study various two-dimensional photonic crystal structures analyzing their topological character through a combined study of TQC, their Wilson-loop (WL) spectra and the electromagnetic energy density. Our study demonstrates that the analysis of the spatial localization of the energy density complements the study of the topological properties in terms of the spectrum of the WL operator and TQC.

Keywords: EM energy density; band representation; photonic crystals; topology.