One-way propagation of bulk states and robust edge states in photonic crystals with broken inversion and time-reversal symmetries

The valley is a flexible degree of freedom for light manipulation in photonic systems. In this work, we introduce the valley concept in magnetic photonic crystals with broken inversion symmetry. One-way propagation of bulk states is demonstrated by exploiting the pseudo-gap where bulk states only exist at one single valley. In addition, the transition between Hall and valley-Hall nontrivial topological phases is also studied in terms of the competition between the broken inversion and time-reversal symmetries. At the photonic boundary between two topologically distinct photonic crystals, we illustrate the one-way propagation of edge states and demonstrate their robustness against defects.