Observation of linear and nonlinear light localization at the edges of moiré lattices

Authors
A. A. Arkhipova, Y. V. Kartashov, S. K. Ivanov, S. A. Zhuravitskii, N. N. Skryabin, I. V. Dyakonov, A. A. Kalinkin, S. P. Kulik, V. O. Kompanets, S. V. Chekalin, F. Ye, V. V. Konotop, L. Torner, V. N. Zadkov

Physical Review Letters, 130, 8, 083801 (2023)

Abstract
We observe linear and nonlinear light localization at the edges and in the corners of truncated moiré arrays created by the superposition of periodic mutually twisted at Pythagorean angles square sublattices. Experimentally exciting corner linear modes in the femtosecond-laser written moiré arrays we find drastic differences in their localization properties in comparison with the bulk excitations. We also address the impact of nonlinearity on the corner and bulk modes and experimentally observe the crossover from linear quasilocalized states to the surface solitons emerging at the higher input powers. Our results constitute the first experimental demonstration of localization phenomena induced by truncation of periodic moiré structures in photonic systems.