Recent studies have shown that low-symmetry conductors under static electric bias offer a pathway to realize chiral gain, where the non-Hermitian optical response of the material is controlled by the spin angular momentum of the wave. In this work, we uncover the topological nature of chiral gain and demonstrate how a static electric bias induces topological bandgaps that support unidirectional edge states at the material boundaries. In our system, these topological edge states consistently exhibit dissipative properties. However, we show that, by operating outside the topological gap, the chiral gain can be leveraged to engineer boundary-confined lasing modes with orbital angular momentum locked to the orientation of the applied electric field. Our results open new possibilities for loss-compensated photonic waveguides, enabling advanced functionalities such as unidirectional, lossless edge-wave propagation and the generation of structured light with intrinsic orbital angular momentum.

--

non-Hermitian systems,Topological materials,Chiral gain media,non-Hermitian electro-optic effect,Berry dipole materials,Optical gain

• Physical Sciences - Natural Sciences
• Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering - Engineering and Technology

This publication is an output of the following project(s):

• Simons Collaboration (Renewal)