We review some recent progress in the exploration of pseudospin-1 physics using dielectric photonic crystals (PCs). We show some physical implications of the PCs exhibiting an accidental degeneracy induced conical dispersion at the Γ point, such as the realization of zero refractive index medium and the zero Berry phase of a loop around the nodal point. The photonic states of such PCs near the Dirac-like point can be described by an effective spin-orbit Hamiltonian of pseudospin-1. The wave propagation in the positive, negative, and zero index media can be unified within a framework of pseudospin-1 description. A scale change in PCs results in a rigid band shift of the Dirac-like cone, allowing for the manipulation of waves in pseudospin-1 systems in much the same way as applying a gate voltage in pseudospin-1/2 graphene. The transport of waves in pseudospin-1 systems exhibits many interesting phenomena, including super Klein tunneling, robust supercollimation, and unconventional Anderson localization. The transport properties of pseudospin-1 systems are distinct from their counterparts in pseudospin-1/2 systems, which will also be presented for comparison.

We discovered unique Anderson localization behaviors of pseudospin systems in a 1D disordered potential. For a pseudospin-1 system, due to the absence of backscattering under normal incidence and the presence of a conical band structure, the wave localization behaviors are entirely different from those of conventional disordered systems. We show that there exists a critical strength of random potential ([Formula: see text]), which is equal to the incident energy ([Formula: see text]), below which the localization length [Formula: see text] decreases with the random strength [Formula: see text] for a fixed incident angle [Formula: see text] But the localization length drops abruptly to a minimum at [Formula: see text] and rises immediately afterward. The incident angle dependence of the localization length has different asymptotic behaviors in the two regions of random strength, with [Formula: see text] when [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] when [Formula: see text] The existence of a sharp transition at [Formula: see text] is due to the emergence of evanescent waves in the systems when [Formula: see text] Such localization behavior is unique to pseudospin-1 systems. For pseudospin-1/2 systems, there is also a minimum localization length as randomness increases, but the transition from decreasing to increasing localization length at the minimum is smooth rather than abrupt. In both decreasing and increasing regions, the [Formula: see text] dependence of the localization length has the same asymptotic behavior [Formula: see text].

We review some recent progress in the exploration of pseudospin-1 physics using dielectric photonic crystals (PCs). We show some physical implications of the PCs exhibiting an accidental degeneracy induced conical dispersion at the Γ point, such as the realization of zero refractive index medium and the zero Berry phase of a loop around the nodal point. The photonic states of such PCs near the Dirac-like point can be described by an effective spin-orbit Hamiltonian of pseudospin-1. The wave propagation in the positive, negative, and zero index media can be unified within a framework of pseudospin-1 description. A scale change in PCs results in a rigid band shift of the Dirac-like cone, allowing for the manipulation of waves in pseudospin-1 systems in much the same way as applying a gate voltage in pseudospin-1/2 graphene. The transport of waves in pseudospin-1 systems exhibits many interesting phenomena, including super Klein tunneling, robust supercollimation, and unconventional Anderson localization. The transport properties of pseudospin-1 systems are distinct from their counterparts in pseudospin-1/2 systems, which will also be presented for comparison.