Emulating spin transport with nonlinear optics, from high-order skyrmions to the topological Hall effect.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33597504.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-21250-z and PMC identifier 7889664.
- 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
Exploring material magnetization led to countless fundamental discoveries and applications, culminating in the field of spintronics. Recently, research effort in this field focused on magnetic skyrmions - topologically robust chiral magnetization textures, capable of storing information and routing spin currents via the topological Hall effect. In this article, we propose an optical system emulating any 2D spin transport phenomena with unprecedented controllability, by employing three-wave mixing in 3D nonlinear photonic crystals. Precise photonic crystal engineering, as well as active all-optical control, enable the realization of effective magnetization textures beyond the limits of thermodynamic stability in current materials. As a proof-of-concept, we theoretically design skyrmionic nonlinear photonic crystals with arbitrary topologies and propose an optical system exhibiting the topological Hall effect. Our work paves the way towards quantum spintronics simulations and novel optoelectronic applications inspired by spintronics, for both classical and quantum optical information processing.