Transport in Sawtooth photonic lattices

Abstract

We investigate, theoretically and experimentally, a photonic realization of a Sawtooth lattice. This special lattice exhibits two spectral bands, with one of them experiencing a complete collapse to a highly degenerate flat band for a special set of inter-site coupling constants. We report the observation of different transport regimes, including strong transport inhibition due to the appearance of the non-diffractive flat band. Moreover, we excite localized Shockley surface states residing in the gap between the two linear bands. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America.