{"id":2769,"date":"2025-07-11T23:27:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T23:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/2769\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T23:27:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T23:27:05","slug":"physics-photonic-spin-textures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/2769\/","title":{"rendered":"Physics – Photonic Spin Textures"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 10, 2025&bullet; Physics 18, s91<\/p>\n

An arrangement of spins known as a meron turns out to be easier to make in momentum space than in real space.<\/p>\n

\"Figure<\/a>\"expand<\/p>\n

A skyrmion is a region where the orientation of a vector field\u2014such as a magnet\u2019s spin texture\u2014locally adopts a vortex-like configuration. Originally conceived as a mathematical description of protons and neutrons, skyrmions have since been realized in magnetic materials, Bose-Einstein condensates, and optical devices. Now Lei Shi of Fudan University in China and his collaborators have made half-skyrmions, or merons, by shining polarized light through a photonic crystal [1<\/a>]. A meron\u2019s or skyrmion\u2019s integrity depends on how many times the orientation of the field rotates within it. This property is usually hard to change, making these features potential channels for information storage.<\/p>\n

Merons and skyrmions are typically made in real space, and their characteristic vortex textures are mapped in x, y, and z. But creating optical merons in real space\u2014typically using the polarization orientation of light in a photonic crystal\u2014requires complex, finicky setups. Shi and his collaborators worked instead in momentum space.<\/p>\n

Their photonic crystal is a dielectric slab patterned with a rectangular grid of cylindrical holes. Thanks to its symmetries, the photonic crystal can host a so-called bound state in the continuum (BIC)\u2014a trapped, localized wave state, which in this case takes the form of a vortex state centered on the origin in 2D momentum space. The researchers found that illuminating the crystal with either left or right circularly polarized light transformed the BIC into one of two different types of meron. The researchers say the simplicity of their system offers promising avenues for photonic applications.<\/p>\n

\u2013Charles Day<\/p>\n

Charles Day is a Senior Editor for Physics\u00a0Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ReferencesL. Rao et al., \u201cMeron spin textures in momentum space spawning from bound states in the continuum,\u201d Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 026203 (2025)<\/a>.Meron Spin Textures in Momentum Space Spawning from Bound States in the Continuum<\/a><\/p>\n

Lixi Rao, Jiajun Wang, Xinhao Wang, Shunben Wu, Xingqi Zhao, Wenzhe Liu, Rensheng Xie, Yijie Shen, Lei Shi, and Jian Zi<\/p>\n

Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 026203 (2025)<\/a><\/p>\n

Published July 10, 2025<\/p>\n

Subject AreasRelated Articles\"Radiation<\/a>\"New<\/a>\"Enter<\/a> More Articles<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 10, 2025&bullet; Physics 18, s91 An arrangement of spins known as a meron turns out to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[199,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-2769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-physics","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}