Photonic flat-band lattices and unconventional light localization

Abstract

Flat-band systems have attracted considerable interest in different branches of physics in the past decades, providing a flexible platform for studying fundamental phenomena associated with completely dispersionless bands within the whole Brillouin zone. Engineered flat-band structures have now been realized in a variety of systems, in particular, in the field of photonics. Flat-band localization, as an important phenomenon in solid-state physics, is fundamentally interesting in the exploration of exotic ground-state properties of many-body systems. However, direct observation of some flat-band phenomena is highly nontrivial in conventional condensed-matter systems because of intrinsic limitations. In this article, we briefly review recent developments on flat-band localization and the associated phenomena in various photonic lattices, including compact localized states, unconventional line states, and noncontractible loop states. We show that the photonic lattices offer a convenient platform for probing the underlying physics of flat-band systems, which may provide inspiration for exploring the fundamentals and applications of flat-band physics in other structured media from metamaterials to nanophotonic materials.