Gauge Fields and Disorder Engineering in Nanophotonics

ABSTRACT

Our work brings together concepts from experimental nanophotonics, condensed matter physics, and advanced fabrication techniques to explore the frontier between order and disorder, and between geometry and field.

The underlying motivation of this work has been to show that photons can traverse paths dictated by synthetic curvature and topology, and that light—though massless and neutral—can be guided by gauge fields of purely geometric origin [1,2]. At a more fundamental level, our work explores how geometry and symmetry orchestrate the behavior of waves in structured media. The interplay between order and disorder [3], and between periodicity and its deliberate violation [4], reveals a deep correspondence between the mathematical structure of Maxwell’s equations and the geometry of the medium through which light propagates.

By emulating gauge fields and engineering disorder, we reshape not only the optical landscape but also the language through which light–matter interactions can be described. Through these studies, our work aims to demonstrate that the geometry of light can be as rich and tunable as that of matter, and that photonic crystals—through strain, topology, and correlated disorder—can host an optical world that parallels, and in some aspects transcends, the quantum landscapes of electronic materials.

References

[1] J. Guglielmon, M. C. Rechtsman, and M. I. Weinstein. Landau levels in strained two-dimensional photonic crystals. Physical Review A, 103(1):013505 (2021).

[2] Maria Barsukova, Fabien Grisé, Zeyu Zhang, Sachin Vaidya, Jonathan Guglielmon, Michael I. Weinstein, Li He, Bo Zhen, Randall McEntaffer, and Mikael C. Rechtsman. Direct observation of landau levels in silicon photonic crystals. Nature Photonics, 18(6):580–585 (2024).

[3] Maria G. Barsukova, Zeyu Zhang, Brian Gould, Koorosh Sadri, Christian Rosiek, Søren Stobbe, Jonas Karcher, and Mikael C. Rechtsman. Stealthy-hyperuniform wave dynamics in two-dimensional photonic crystals. Phys. Rev. X 16, 021028 (2026).

[4] Z. Zhang, B. Gould, M. G. Barsukova, and M. Rechtsman. Photonic Crystal Superpotentials: Realization of Airy Resonances. Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 183804 (2026).

BIOGRAPHY

Maria G. Barsukova is an EKA Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the Department of Physics at Columbia University, where she works with the groups of Prof. Nanfang Yu and Prof. Sebastian Will. She received her Ph.D. in Physics from The Pennsylvania State University and her B.S. and M.S. in Physics from Lomonosov Moscow State University. Her research focuses on experimental nanophotonics and the use of engineered optical systems to emulate quantum phenomena. Her work spans synthetic gauge fields, photonic crystals, disorder-resilient photonics, and light–matter interactions at the nanoscale. During her doctoral research, she experimentally demonstrated photonic Landau levels in strained silicon photonic crystals, work published in Nature Photonics. Her current research explores hybrid nanophotonic and quantum platforms, including interfaces with neutral-atom systems, toward new approaches to quantum technologies.