Scientists discovered hopfion crystals – which are flying in spacetime
An internationally joint research group between Singapore and Japan has unveiled a blueprint for arranging exotic, knot-like patterns of light into repeatable crystals that extend across both space and time. The work lays out how to build and control “hopfion” lattices using structured beams at two different colors, pointing to future systems for dense, robust information processing in photonics.
Hopfions are three-dimensional topological textures whose internal “spin” patterns weave into closed, interlinked loops. They have been observed ...