Cargando…

Squirming motion of baby skyrmions in nematic fluids

Skyrmions are topologically protected continuous field configurations that cannot be smoothly transformed to a uniform state. They behave like particles and give origins to the field of skyrmionics that promises racetrack memory and other technological applications. Unraveling the non-equilibrium be...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ackerman, Paul J., Boyle, Timothy, Smalyukh, Ivan I.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5610258/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28939901
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00659-5
_version_ 1783265745046601728
author Ackerman, Paul J.
Boyle, Timothy
Smalyukh, Ivan I.
author_facet Ackerman, Paul J.
Boyle, Timothy
Smalyukh, Ivan I.
author_sort Ackerman, Paul J.
collection PubMed
description Skyrmions are topologically protected continuous field configurations that cannot be smoothly transformed to a uniform state. They behave like particles and give origins to the field of skyrmionics that promises racetrack memory and other technological applications. Unraveling the non-equilibrium behavior of such topological solitons is a challenge. We realize skyrmions in a chiral liquid crystal and, using numerical modeling and polarized video microscopy, demonstrate electrically driven squirming motion. We reveal the intricate details of non-equilibrium topology-preserving textural changes driving this behavior. Direction of the skyrmion’s motion is robustly controlled in a plane orthogonal to the applied field and can be reversed by varying frequency. Our findings may spur a paradigm of soliton dynamics in soft matter, with a rich interplay between topology, chirality, and orientational viscoelasticity.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5610258
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2017
publisher Nature Publishing Group UK
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-56102582017-09-26 Squirming motion of baby skyrmions in nematic fluids Ackerman, Paul J. Boyle, Timothy Smalyukh, Ivan I. Nat Commun Article Skyrmions are topologically protected continuous field configurations that cannot be smoothly transformed to a uniform state. They behave like particles and give origins to the field of skyrmionics that promises racetrack memory and other technological applications. Unraveling the non-equilibrium behavior of such topological solitons is a challenge. We realize skyrmions in a chiral liquid crystal and, using numerical modeling and polarized video microscopy, demonstrate electrically driven squirming motion. We reveal the intricate details of non-equilibrium topology-preserving textural changes driving this behavior. Direction of the skyrmion’s motion is robustly controlled in a plane orthogonal to the applied field and can be reversed by varying frequency. Our findings may spur a paradigm of soliton dynamics in soft matter, with a rich interplay between topology, chirality, and orientational viscoelasticity. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-09-22 /pmc/articles/PMC5610258/ /pubmed/28939901 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00659-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Ackerman, Paul J.
Boyle, Timothy
Smalyukh, Ivan I.
Squirming motion of baby skyrmions in nematic fluids
title Squirming motion of baby skyrmions in nematic fluids
title_full Squirming motion of baby skyrmions in nematic fluids
title_fullStr Squirming motion of baby skyrmions in nematic fluids
title_full_unstemmed Squirming motion of baby skyrmions in nematic fluids
title_short Squirming motion of baby skyrmions in nematic fluids
title_sort squirming motion of baby skyrmions in nematic fluids
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5610258/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28939901
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00659-5
work_keys_str_mv AT ackermanpaulj squirmingmotionofbabyskyrmionsinnematicfluids
AT boyletimothy squirmingmotionofbabyskyrmionsinnematicfluids
AT smalyukhivani squirmingmotionofbabyskyrmionsinnematicfluids