Observation of Floquet topological phases with large Chern numbers
Kai Yang, Shaoyi Xu, Longwen Zhou, Zhiyuan Zhao, Tianyu Xie, Zhe Ding, Wenchao Ma, Jiangbin Gong, Fazhan Shi, Jiangfeng Du
Abstract
Floquet engineering offers a powerful approach to the generation of nonequilibrium topological phases with large topological invariants and hence a proliferation of topological edge modes. It is thus of importance to develop feasible experimental approaches to detect such topological phases. Using the nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond and its synthetic dimensions, here we experimentally demonstrate how Floquet Chern insulator phases can be clearly detected through imaging the static and dynamic spin textures in momentum space. In particular, we simulate a periodically quenched generalized Haldane model and observe different topological phases with Chern numbers $C=1,2,4$. In addition to confirming the versatility of Floquet driving in generating phases with large Chern numbers, this work clearly establishes an experimental method to detect Floquet topological phases in two and higher spatial dimensions.