Optics Daily · Monday, October 19, 2026
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Programmable photonic chip probes topological properties of optical devices
A research team at KTH Royal Institute of Technology has demonstrated a programmable photonic chip that can simulate dissipative systems and detect and measure their topological properties. The work models loss mathematically without actually losing signal, distinguishes topological cases from ordinary ones by comparing the light with a reference beam, and detects exceptional points.
Technology and Research
Phys.org Optics and PhotonicsOptics industryProgrammable Photonic Chip Offers New Way to Probe Topological Properties of Optical Systems
A research team at KTH Royal Institute of Technology has demonstrated a programmable photonic chip that can emulate dissipative systems and detect and measure their topological properties. The work uses a mathematical method to simulate loss without actually losing the signal, then compares the light with a reference beam to distinguish topological scenarios from ordinary ones and detect exceptional points. The results were published in Physical Review Letters, and the same chip can be reprogrammed to test different scenarios.