Skyrmions based on optical anisotropy for topological encoding

Yunqi Zhang; An Aloysius Wang; Runchen Zhang; Zimo Zhao; Yifei Ma; Ruofu Liu; Zhi-Kai Pong; Yuxi Cai; Chao He

doi:10.1038/s41377-026-02307-4

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Skyrmions based on optical anisotropy for topological encoding

Original Articles

- Skyrmions based on optical anisotropy for topological encoding
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 15, Issue 8, Pages: 2782-2791(2026)
- Affiliations：
  
  Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- Author bio：
  
  Chao He (chao.he@eng.ox.ac.uk)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-026-02307-4
  CLC：
- Received：02 December 2025，
  
  Revised：2026-03-11，
  
  Accepted：10 April 2026，
  
  Online First：27 May 2026，
  
  Published：31 August 2026
- Accepted：
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Zhang, Y. Q. et al. Skyrmions based on optical anisotropy for topological encoding. Light: Science & Applications, 15, 2782-2791 (2026).
DOI：

Zhang, Y. Q. et al. Skyrmions based on optical anisotropy for topological encoding. Light: Science & Applications, 15, 2782-2791 (2026). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-026-02307-4.

摘要

Abstract

The observation of skyrmions across diverse physical domains suggests that they are universal features of

$$ {S}^{2} $$

-valued fields

reflecting the ubiquity of topology in the study of the natural world. In this paper

we develop an abstract technique of parameter space dimensionality reduction that extends the skyrmion framework to fields taking values in manifolds of dimension greater than 2

thereby broadening the

range of systems that can support skyrmions. To prove that this is more than just a mathematical abstraction

we apply our technique to light-matter interactions

directly encoding skyrmionic structures into the optical anisotropy of spatially varying structured matter by selecting a distinguished axis

an approach fundamentally different from the more commonly known skyrmions formed by director fields in liquid crystals. We experimentally realize such skyrmions using a liquid-crystal-based tunable elliptical retarder array as a proof-of-concept platform and demonstrate complex

reconfigurable skyrmionic states exhibiting topological robustness under artificially introduced stochastic perturbations. Exploiting this robustness

we demonstrate a promising application of skyrmions in topologically protected information storage and provide an easily verifiable rule

which we term the 60° rule

that serves as a practical engineering criterion for guaranteeing robustness against noise and measurement errors.

关键词

Keywords

references

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