A new optical design creates adjustable patterns that can retain their underlying structure as they travel through open space.
The work adapts the idea of moiré patterns—structures formed when repeating patterns are twisted relative to one another—to light moving through open space. By adjusting the twist angle, the researchers report that the resulting light fields can move among several topological arrangements, including skyrmionium bags, skyrmion bag superlattices, skyrmion clusters and quasicrystals.
These light patterns are described as nondiffracting, meaning they spread little as they propagate. Their topological structures also persist over long distances and withstand perturbations and obstacles, according to the article.
What the light patterns do
The researchers present moiré structured light in which a propagating light field, rather than stacked two-dimensional material layers, forms the twisted pattern. Varying the twist angle allows the field to generate and switch among multiple topologies, including skyrmionium bags, skyrmion bag superlattices, skyrmion clusters and quasicrystals. The abstract states that these structures retain their topology during long-distance propagation, show nondiffracting behavior and are robust against perturbations and obstacles.
