Circularly polarized light guided through crystal, undeterred by bumps, bends, and back-reflections, for controllable chips, smart routing for data links

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1097878

"light signals scatter into dead ends/ vanish before reaching destination, overcome using protected topological channel reshaping landscape on the fly keeping light on course, forward only... no bulky magnets... screen plots matched ideal topological band diagram... photonics not bound by electronics' constraints... sturdier lasers, faster data links, light-based chips that don’t get tripped up by imperfections, quantum light state shielding... future: scale to microwave where components larger/ easier to handle"