I absolutely love stories like this one. I've always been a bit of a physics geek and both the word "hopfions", the thought of light "smoke rings" and the images set off a wave of intellectual joy in my brain.
Photonic hopfions: Light shaped as a smoke ring that behaves like a particle
We can frequently find in our daily lives a localized wave structure that maintains its shape upon propagation—picture a smoke ring flying in the air. Similar stable structures have been studied in various research fields and can be found in magnets, nuclear systems, and particle physics. In contrast to a ring of smoke, they can be made resilient to perturbations. This is known in mathematics and physics as topological protection.
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Recent studies of structured light revealed strong spatial variations of polarization, phase, and amplitude, which enable the understanding of—and open up opportunities for designing—topologically stable optical structures behaving like particles. Such quasiparticles of light with control of diversified topological properties may have great potential, for example as next-generation information carriers for ultra-large-capacity optical information transfer, as well as in quantum technologies.
As reported in Advanced Photonics, collaborating physicists from UK and China recently demonstrated the generation of polarization patterns with designed topologically stable properties in three dimensions, which, for the first time, can be controllably transformed and propagated in free space.
Recent studies of structured light revealed strong spatial variations of polarization, phase, and amplitude, which enable the understanding of—and open up opportunities for designing—topologically stable optical structures behaving like particles. Such quasiparticles of light with control of diversified topological properties may have great potential, for example as next-generation information carriers for ultra-large-capacity optical information transfer, as well as in quantum technologies.
As reported in Advanced Photonics, collaborating physicists from UK and China recently demonstrated the generation of polarization patterns with designed topologically stable properties in three dimensions, which, for the first time, can be controllably transformed and propagated in free space.
Photonic hopfions: Light shaped as a smoke ring that behaves like a particle
We can frequently find in our daily lives a localized wave structure that maintains its shape upon propagation—picture a smoke ring flying in the air. Similar stable structures have been studied in various research fields and can be found in magnets, nuclear systems, and particle physics. In contrast to a ring of smoke, they can be made resilient to perturbations. This is known in mathematics and physics as topological protection.
...
Recent studies of structured light revealed strong spatial variations of polarization, phase, and amplitude, which enable the understanding of—and open up opportunities for designing—topologically stable optical structures behaving like particles. Such quasiparticles of light with control of diversified topological properties may have great potential, for example as next-generation information carriers for ultra-large-capacity optical information transfer, as well as in quantum technologies.
As reported in Advanced Photonics, collaborating physicists from UK and China recently demonstrated the generation of polarization patterns with designed topologically stable properties in three dimensions, which, for the first time, can be controllably transformed and propagated in free space.
Recent studies of structured light revealed strong spatial variations of polarization, phase, and amplitude, which enable the understanding of—and open up opportunities for designing—topologically stable optical structures behaving like particles. Such quasiparticles of light with control of diversified topological properties may have great potential, for example as next-generation information carriers for ultra-large-capacity optical information transfer, as well as in quantum technologies.
As reported in Advanced Photonics, collaborating physicists from UK and China recently demonstrated the generation of polarization patterns with designed topologically stable properties in three dimensions, which, for the first time, can be controllably transformed and propagated in free space.
