Zhao Hanqing, Malomed Boris A, Smalyukh Ivan I
Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA.
Department of Physical Electronics, School of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, and Center for Light-Matter Interaction, Tel Aviv University, P.O.B. 39040, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Nat Commun. 2023 Jul 29;14(1):4581. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-40335-5.
Being ubiquitous, solitons have particle-like properties, exhibiting behaviour often associated with atoms. Bound solitons emulate dynamics of molecules, though solitonic analogues of polymeric materials have not been considered yet. Here we experimentally create and model soliton polymers, which we call "polyskyrmionomers", built of atom-like individual solitons characterized by the topological invariant representing the skyrmion number. With the help of nonlinear optical imaging and numerical modelling based on minimizing the free energy, we reveal how topological point defects bind the solitonic quasi-atoms into polyskyrmionomers, featuring linear, branched, and other macromolecule-resembling architectures, as well as allowing for encoding data by spatial distributions of the skyrmion number. Application of oscillating electric fields activates diverse modes of locomotion and internal vibrations of these self-assembled soliton structures, which depend on symmetry of the solitonic macromolecules. Our findings suggest new designs of soliton meta matter, with a potential for the use in fundamental research and technology.
孤子无处不在，具有类粒子特性，展现出通常与原子相关的行为。束缚孤子模拟分子动力学，不过尚未考虑聚合物材料的孤子类似物。在此，我们通过实验创建并模拟了孤子聚合物，我们将其称为“多斯格明子聚合物”，它由类似原子的单个孤子构成，这些孤子由代表斯格明子数的拓扑不变量表征。借助非线性光学成像以及基于自由能最小化的数值模拟，我们揭示了拓扑点缺陷如何将孤子准原子束缚成多斯格明子聚合物，其具有线性、分支状以及其他类似大分子的结构，还能通过斯格明子数的空间分布进行数据编码。施加振荡电场会激活这些自组装孤子结构的多种运动模式和内部振动，这取决于孤子大分子的对称性。我们的研究结果为孤子元物质提出了新设计，有望用于基础研究和技术领域。
