Non-Hermitian Aharonov-Bohm Cage

Abstract: Aharonov-Bohm (AB) cage has a spectrum fully constituted by the flat bands and has the capacity to confine arbitrary excitation. The confined excitation in coupled waveguides propagates without diffraction. Exploited the unidirectionality of the exceptional point (EP), we first propose the non-Hermitian AB cage in the photonic crystal with inversion symmetry or combined-inversion symmetry. Alternatively, the destructive interference of the synthetic magnetic flux incorporated with gain and loss at the EP is then shown to be able to induce the non-Hermitian AB cage. The spectrum of the non-Hermitian AB cage is entirely constituted by the coalesced flat bands. The light excitation is still confined regardless of the nonunitary dynamics caused by the non-Hermiticity, but the localization area may alter. The non-Hermitian AB caging can also be observed in the passive photonic crystals including coupled waveguides. These findings pave the way of light control and manipulation in the non-Hermitian integrated photonics.