Topological protection of optical skyrmions through complex media

An Aloysius Wang; Zimo Zhao; Yifei Ma; Yuxi Cai; Runchen Zhang; Xiaoyi Shang; Yunqi Zhang; Ji Qin; Zhi-Kai Pong; Tádé Marozsák; Binguo Chen; Honghui He; Lin Luo; Martin J. Booth; Steve J. Elston; Stephen M. Morris; Chao He

doi:10.1038/s41377-024-01659-z

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Topological protection of optical skyrmions through complex media

Original Articles

- Topological protection of optical skyrmions through complex media
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 13, Issue 12, Pages: 3236-3252(2024)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  2.Guangdong Research Center of Polarization Imaging and Measurement Engineering Technology, Institute of Biopharmaceutical and Health Engineering, Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, China
  3.College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China
- Author bio：
  
  An Aloysius Wang (aw6609@princeton.edu)
  Chao He (chao.he@eng.ox.ac.uk)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-024-01659-z
  CLC：
- Published：31 December 2024，
  
  Published Online：22 November 2024，
  
  Received：20 August 2024，
  
  Revised：10 October 2024，
  
  Accepted：11 October 2024
- Accepted：
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Wang, A. A. et al. Topological protection of optical skyrmions through complex media. Light: Science & Applications, 13, 3236-3252 (2024).
DOI：

Wang, A. A. et al. Topological protection of optical skyrmions through complex media. Light: Science & Applications, 13, 3236-3252 (2024). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-024-01659-z.

摘要

Abstract

Optical Skyrmions have many important properties that make them ideal units for high-density data applications

including the ability to carry digital information through a discrete topological number and the independence of spatially varying polarization to other dimensions. More importantly

the topological nature of the optical Skyrmion heuristically suggests a strong degree of robustness to perturbations

which is crucial for reliably carrying information in noisy environments. However

the study of the topological robustness of optical Skyrmions is still in its infancy. Here

we quantify this robustness precisely by proving that the topological nature of the Skyrmion arises from its structure on the boundary and

by duality

is resilient to spatially varying perturbations provided they respect the relevant boundary conditions of the unperturbed Skyrmion. We then present experimental evidence validating this robustness in the context of paraxial Skyrmion beams against complex polarization aberrations. Our work provides a framework for handling various perturbations of Skyrmion fields and offers guarantees of robustness in a general sense. This

in turn

has implications for applications of the Skyrmion where their topological nature is exploited explicitly

and

in particular

provides an underpinning for the use of optical Skyrmions in communications and computing.

关键词

Keywords

references

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