Optomechanical Kitaev chain

Our work on an optomechanical realization of the bosonic Kitaev chain was published today in Nature. In the paper, we reports a metamaterial with a unique set of properties, including directional amplification and exponential sensing enhancement. Our experiments also probe the topological nature of the bosonic Kitaev chain. This is what gives it its special behavior, even if the topological amplification in this non-Hermitian metamaterial is very different from the topological Majorana zero modes for which the fermionic Kitaev chain is famous. Check out our press release or the paper itself if you want to learn more! Again a very nice collaboration of our (now former) group members Jesse Slim and Javier del Pino with Clara Wanjura, Matteo Brunelli, and Andreas Nunnenkamp.