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Free-Space Skyrmions Radiated from a Geometric Phase Aperture
Peng-Yi Feng1, Benfeng Bai1, Jie Yang2,3
1State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Department of Precision Instrument, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
ACS Nano
|June 3, 2026
Summary
Researchers created free-space optical spin skyrmions using a single plasmonic device. This breakthrough enables robust chip-to-chip optical communications by overcoming previous limitations of radiative skyrmions.
Area of Science:
- Photonics
- Plasmonics
- Topological Photonics
Background:
- Optical spin skyrmions offer unique topological properties for data encoding.
- Existing methods for generating radiative spin skyrmions are complex and rely on bulky optical elements.
- Surface plasmonics enable subwavelength skyrmions but confine them to interfaces, preventing free-space radiation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a direct method for generating free-space optical spin skyrmions.
- To overcome the limitations of spatial confinement and bulky optical setups.
- To enable on-chip interconnection for high-capacity optical communications.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a single plasmonic geometric phase aperture device.
- Engineered skyrmion textures in radiated fields via spin-orbit interaction in metallic nanoslits.
- Leveraged Pancharatnam-Berry geometric phases to transform circularly polarized waves into vortex beams.
Main Results:
- Successfully generated free-space optical spin skyrmions from a single plasmonic device.
- Skyrmion fields were formed by nesting vortex beams with residual light.
- Experimental visualization confirmed skyrmion textures using spin-selective, phase-resolved scanning near-field optical microscopy.
- Skyrmions were generated in the intermediate field region, bridging near-field and far-field.
Conclusions:
- The plasmonic geometric phase aperture provides a direct route to free-space radiative spin skyrmions.
- This approach overcomes the need for cascaded, bulky optical elements.
- The generated optical skyrmions are suitable for high-capacity and robust chip-to-chip optical communications.
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