Related papers: Optically enriched and guided dynamics of active s…
The persistent motility of the individual constituents in microbial suspensions represents a prime example of so-called active matter systems. Cells consume energy, exert forces and move, overall releasing the constraints of equilibrium…
Widely known for their uses in displays and electro-optics, liquid crystals are more than just technological marvels. They vividly reveal the topology and structure of various solitonic and singular field configurations, often markedly…
Optical skyrmions has recently unlocked topological quasiparticle textures of light, rising in prominence for next-generation ultra-robust information processing. However, to date, their study hasbeen mainly confined to coherent laser…
Optical topologies in the form of Skyrmions have attracted significant interest of late, where their integer Skyrmion number has been shown to be robust to complex media. Here we create the first fractional Skyrmions by structuring light as…
An all-optically driven strategy to govern a liquid crystalline collective molecular nonlinear oscillator is discussed. It does not require external feedbacks of any kind while the oscillator and a time-depending perturbation both are…
Biological systems often operate at the boundary between order and chaos, transitioning from directed to irregular dynamics to achieve adaptability and robustness. Reproducing such transitions in artificial soft matter remains a central…
Chirality, an intrinsic handedness, is one of the most intriguing fundamental phenomena in nature. Materials composed of chiral molecules find broad applications in areas ranging from nonlinear optics and spintronics to biology and…
Control of physical behaviors of nematic colloids and colloidal crystals has been demonstrated by tuning particle shape, topology, chirality and surface charging. However, the capability of altering physical behaviors of such soft matter…
The chiral nature of active matter plays an important role in the dynamics of active matter interacting with chiral structures. Skyrmions are chiral objects, and their interactions with chiral nanostructures can lead to intriguing…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into directional motion, giving rise to striking dynamical phenomena. Developing a general understanding of their structure in relation to the underlying non-equilibrium physics would…
Chiral condensed matter systems, such as liquid crystals and magnets, exhibit a host of spatially localized topological structures that emerge from the medium's tendency to twist and its competition with confinement and field coupling…
Collective motion of self-propelled organisms or synthetic particles often termed active fluid has attracted enormous attention in broad scientific community because of it fundamentally non-equilibrium nature. Energy input and interactions…
We propose and show that application of light leads to an intriguing platform for controlling exceptional points in non-Hermitian topological systems. We demonstrate our proposal using three different non-Hermitian systems -- nodal line…
Directional motion is commonly observed in various living active systems, such as bacterial colonies moving through confined environments. In these systems, the dynamics arise from the collective effects of mutual interactions between…
The control of light by light is one of the main aims in modern photonics. In this context, a fundamental cornerstone is the realization of light-written waveguides in real time, resulting in all-optical reconfigurability of communication…
The study of active matter has revealed novel non-equilibrium collective behaviors, illustrating their potential as a new materials platform. However, most works treat active matter as unregulated systems with uniform microscopic energy…
Light carries energy and momentum. It can therefore alter the motion of objects from atomic to astronomical scales. Being widely available, readily controllable and broadly biocompatible, light is also an ideal tool to propel microscopic…
Magnetic skyrmions are topological magnetic spin structures exhibiting particle-like behaviour. They are of strong interest from a fundamental viewpoint and for application, where they have potential to act as information carriers in future…
We show that the mechanical effect of light on the orientational ordering of the crystalline axis of a mesophase can be used to control the dynamics of the optical response of liquid crystal infiltrated photonic structures. The…
Actuation remains a signifcant challenge in soft robotics. Actuation by light has important advantages: objects can be actuated from a distance, distinct frequencies can be used to actuate and control distinct modes with minimal…