Toroidal vortices of light

Wan, Chenhao; Cao, Qian; Chen, Jian; Chong, Andy; Zhan, Qiwen

doi:10.1038/s41566-022-01013-y

Cited by 108 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The key to experimentally generate optical hopfions is to manipulate poloidal and toroidal spiral phase in toroidal coordinates. A linear method has recently been demonstrated to create toroidal vortices of light [41]. As shown in Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scalar optical hopfions

Wan

Shen

Chong

et al. 2022

eLight

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Hopfions are three-dimensional (3D) topological states discovered in field theory, magnetics, and hydrodynamics that resemble particle-like objects in physical space. Hopfions inherit the topological features of the Hopf fibration, a homotopic mapping from unit sphere in 4D space to unit sphere in 3D space. Here we design and demonstrate dynamic scalar optical hopfions in the shape of a toroidal vortex and expressed as an approximate solution to Maxwell’s equations. Equiphase lines correspond to disjoint and interlinked loops forming complete ring tori in 3D space. The Hopf invariant, product of two winding numbers, is determined by the topological charge of the poloidal spatiotemporal vortices and toroidal spatial vortices in toroidal coordinates. Optical hopfions provide a photonic testbed for studying topological states and may be utilized as high-dimensional information carriers.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scalar optical hopfions

Wan

Shen

Chong

et al. 2022

eLight

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“…This scheme is a fundamental platform, based on which even higher-dimensional (7D) optical tweezers can be developed by involving time as an additional DoF. The structured beam on the spatiotemporal scale can cause particles to execute arbitrary circular motions under certain circumstances [39,40], and more dimensions subjoin the optical tweezers by introducing spacetime optics. Additionally, the self-accelerating wave enveloping causes arbitrary temporal control acceleration for the optical field, which creates a new DoF for optical manipulation [41][42][43].…”

Section: Discussion and Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Six-dimensional structured optical tweezers synthetized by rigid-body emulation

Shen

Zhu

Tai

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Structuring light with more extended degrees of freedom (DoFs) and in higher dimensions is increasingly gaining traction and leading to breakthroughs such as super-resolution imaging, larger-capacity communication, especially ultraprecise optical trapping or tweezers. More DoFs when manipulating an object can access more maneuvers and radically increase maneuvering precision, which is of significance in biology and related microscopic detection. However, manipulating particles beyond the three-dimensional (3D) spatial manipulation by using current all-optical tweezers technology remains difficult. To overcome this limitation, we theoretically and experimentally present six-dimensional (6D) structured optical tweezers based on tailoring structured light emulating rigid-body mechanics. Our method facilitates the evaluation of the methodology of rigid-body mechanics to synthesize six independent DoFs in a structured optical trapping system, akin to six-axis rigid-body manipulation, including surge, sway, heave, roll, pitch, and yaw. In contrast to previous 3D optical tweezers, our 6D structured optical tweezers significantly improved the flexibility of the path design of complex trajectories, thereby laying the foundation for next-generation functional optical manipulation, assembly, and micromechanics.

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“…Topology in the real space can also give rise to intriguing physical properties and phenomena. In particular, Maxwell's equations allow unique solutions with nontrivial topology in the real space, where the field lines, phase singularities (i.e., optical vortices), or polarization disclinations can form links, knots, and toroids (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12). These topological configurations of electromagnetic fields can enable highly flexible manipulations of phase and polarization with unprecedented precision for various applications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Topological near fields generated by topological structures

et al. 2022

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The central idea of metamaterials and metaoptics is that, besides their base materials, the geometry of structures offers a broad extra dimension to explore for exotic functionalities. Here, we discover that the topology of structures fundamentally dictates the topological properties of optical fields and offers a new dimension to exploit for optical functionalities that are irrelevant to specific material constituents or structural geometries. We find that the nontrivial topology of metal structures ensures the birth of polarization singularities (PSs) in the near field with rich morphologies and intriguing spatial evolutions including merging, bifurcation, and topological transition. By mapping the PSs to non-Hermitian exceptional points and using homotopy theory, we extract the core invariant that governs the topological classification of the PSs and the conservation law that regulates their spatial evolutions. The results bridge singular optics, topological photonics, and non-Hermitian physics, with potential applications in chiral sensing, chiral quantum optics, and beyond photonics in other wave systems.

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Toroidal vortices of light

Cited by 108 publications

References 30 publications

Scalar optical hopfions

Scalar optical hopfions

Six-dimensional structured optical tweezers synthetized by rigid-body emulation

Topological near fields generated by topological structures

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