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  • Review Article
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Artificial gauge fields in photonics

Nature Reviews Physics volume 7, pages 606–620 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Structured photonic systems, from photonic crystals to metamaterials and metasurfaces, provide a broad platform for photonic gauge fields. This artificial version of the real gauge fields in electrodynamics can induce a range of exotic functionalities in many branches of optical physics, enabling the manipulation of light and its interactions with various photonic structures in new and interesting ways. In this Review, we provide a viewpoint on how the concept of artificial gauge fields can connect seemingly unrelated optical effects. Artificial gauge fields in photonics can be either vectorial or scalar, Abelian or non-Abelian, real or complex. They apply not only to conventional real and momentum spaces, but also to spaces spanned by other synthetic dimensions, and are applicable to both semiclassical and quantum systems. In this Review, leveraging the wide applicability of the artificial gauge field, we connect different optical branches, including topological photonics, non-Abelian physics and non-Hermitian photonics. We discuss the current progress and next steps of research on optical gauge fields as well as their potential for future applications.

Key points

  • Artificial gauge fields, stimulated by concepts of topology, singularity, non-Hermiticity and non-Abelian character, have become a unifying framework that permeates and connects diverse branches of photonics.

  • Artificial gauge fields bridge vibrant fields of research in optics and photonics across both classical and quantum systems.

  • Artificial gauge fields provide a versatile platform to explore fundamental physics and develop advanced photonic devices, which may include integrated photonic circuits.

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Fig. 1: Artificial gauge fields in photonics.
Fig. 2: Scalar gauge potentials.
Fig. 3: Vector gauge potentials.
Fig. 4: Non-Abelian gauge fields.
Fig. 5: Complex gauge potentials.
Fig. 6: Artificial gauge fields for photons.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all their collaborators on the topic of artificial gauge fields and related work. W.S. and T.L. acknowledge funding from the National Key R&D Program of China (2023YFA1407700, 2022YFA1404301) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 12522421, 12204233, 12174186, 62288101, 92250304 and 62325504). W.L. is supported by Outstanding Young Researcher Scheme of Hunan Province (2024JJ2056). S.Z. acknowledges support from the Quantum Science Center of Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Great Bay Area, New Cornerstone Science Foundation and the Hong Kong Research Grant Council (STG3/E-704/23-N, AoE/P-701/20, 17315522).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Key Laboratory of Intelligent Optical Sensing and Manipulations, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional Materials, Collaborative innovation center of advanced microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Wange Song, Zhiyuan Lin, Xuanyu Liu, Shengjie Wu, Chen Chen, Shining Zhu & Tao Li

  2. New Cornerstone Science Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Wange Song, Yi Yang & Shuang Zhang

  3. HK Institute of Quantum Science and Technology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Yi Yang

  4. Institute of Quantum Precision Measurement, State Key Laboratory of Radio Frequency Heterogeneous Integration, College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China

    Yongguan Ke & Chaohong Lee

  5. Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Metrology, School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-Sen University (Zhuhai Campus), Zhuhai, China

    Yongguan Ke

  6. Quantum Science Center of Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, Shenzhen, China

    Chaohong Lee & Shuang Zhang

  7. Nanhu Laser Laboratory and Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Novel Nano-Optoelectronic Information Materials and Devices, College for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, P. R. China

    Wei Liu

  8. Nonlinear Physics Center, Research School of Physics, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Yuri Kivshar

  9. Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Shuang Zhang

  10. Materials Innovation Institute for Life Sciences and Energy (MILES), HKU-SIRI, Shenzhen, China

    Shuang Zhang

  11. State Key Laboratory of Optical Quantum Materials, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Shuang Zhang

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  1. Wange Song
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  2. Yi Yang
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  3. Zhiyuan Lin
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  6. Chen Chen
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  9. Wei Liu
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  11. Yuri Kivshar
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  12. Tao Li
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  13. Shuang Zhang
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Contributions

All authors researched data for the article. All authors contributed substantially to discussion of the content. All authors wrote the article. W.S., W.L., Y.K., T.L. and S.Zhang reviewed and/or edited the manuscript before submission.

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Correspondence to Wange Song, Wei Liu, Yuri Kivshar, Tao Li or Shuang Zhang.

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Song, W., Yang, Y., Lin, Z. et al. Artificial gauge fields in photonics. Nat Rev Phys 7, 606–620 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-025-00869-7

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