Hopfions emerge in ferroelectrics.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 32415142.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-16258-w and PMC identifier 7229001.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Paradigmatic knotted solitons, Hopfions, that are characterized by topological Hopf invariant, attract an intense attention in the diverse areas of physics ranging from high-energy physics, cosmology and astrophysics to biology, magneto- and hydrodynamics and condensed matter physics. Yet, while being of broad interest, they remain elusive and under-explored. Here we demonstrate that Hopfions emerge as a basic configuration of polarization field in confined ferroelectric nanoparticles. Our findings establish that Hopfions are of fundamental importance for the electromagnetic behavior of the nanocomposits and can result in advanced functionalities of these materials.