Photonic Ferroelectric Vortex Lattice

The recent discovery of polar vortex textures revealed a new fascinating facet of nanoscale ferroelectric materials with prospects for new interaction pathways with chiral, topological, and photonic materials. Here, we demonstrate how the subterahertz collective response of the ferroelectric vortex lattice enables a coupling to electric and magnetic fields resulting in a novel type of photonic vortex lattice with particular dispersion that we analyze for a wide class of ferroelectric/paraelectric layered heterostructures. General arguments supported by full, material-specific numerics evidence the appearance of polarization-dependent optoelectronic modes and band gaps. The ferroelectric-photonic vorticity coupling renders photonic elements amenable to elastic, electric, and magnetic probes with far-reaching implications for new multifunctional optoelectronics.