Optically enriched and guided dynamics of active skyrmions
arXiv:1911.04640 · doi:10.1364/OE.382845
Abstract
Light provides a powerful means of controlling physical behavior of materials but is rarely used to power and guide active matter systems. We demonstrate optical control of liquid crystalline topological solitons dubbed "skyrmions", which recently emerged as highly reconfigurable inanimate active particles capable of exhibiting emergent collective behaviors like schooling. Because of a chiral nematic liquid crystal's natural tendency to twist and its facile response to electric fields and light, it serves as a testbed for dynamic control of skyrmions and other active particles. Using ambient-intensity unstructured light, we demonstrate large-scale multifaceted reconfigurations and unjamming of collective skyrmion motions powered by oscillating electric fields and guided by optically-induced obstacles and patterned illumination.
References in corpus (23)
- Spontaneous Skyrmion Ground States in Magnetic Metals
- Spontaneous motion in hierarchically assembled active matter
- Long-lived Giant Number Fluctuations in a Swarming Granular Nematic
- Optical skyrmions in evanescent electromagnetic fields
- Deep-subwavelength features of photonic skyrmions in a confined electromagnetic field with orbital angular momentum
- Topographical pathways guide chemical microswimmers
- Orientational order of motile defects in active nematics
- Flocking at a distance in active granular matter
- Self-propulsion of a catalytically active particle near a planar wall: from reflection to sliding and hovering
- Collective Motion of Moshers at Heavy Metal Concerts
- Two-dimensional skyrmions and other solitonic structures in confinement-frustrated chiral nematics
- Diversity of knot solitons in liquid crystals manifested by linking of preimages in torons and hopfions
- Asymmetric isolated skyrmions in polar magnets with easy-plane anisotropy
- Three-dimensional chiral skyrmions with attractive interparticle interactions
- Photonic Dirac monopoles and skyrmions: spin-1 quantization
- Schools of skyrmions with electrically tunable elastic interactions
- Photonic orbital angular momentum transfer and magnetic skyrmion rotation
- Traffic jams and intermittent flows in microfluidic networks
- Self-assembled nematic colloidal motors powered by light
- Collective behavior of active topological solitons, knotted streamlines, and transport of cargo in liquid crystals
- Spintronics via non-axisymmetric chiral skyrmions
- Optical patterning of magnetic domains and defects in ferromagnetic liquid crystal colloids
- Light-controlled skyrmions and torons as reconfigurable particles