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Torons are three-dimensional double-twist solitons in chiral nematic liquid crystals that form localised director configurations protected by topology and bounded by closed defect loops. They behave as particle-like entities while retaining…
Active colloids and liquid crystals are capable of locally converting the macroscopically-supplied energy into directional motion and promise a host of new applications, ranging from drug delivery to cargo transport at the mesoscale. Here…
Topologically nontrivial field configurations called "baby skyrmions" behave like particles and give origins to the field of skyrmionics that promises racetrack memory and other technological applications. Unraveling the non-equilibrium…
Topological solitons, such as skyrmions, arise in field theories of systems ranging from Bose-Einstein condensates to optics, particle physics, and cosmology, but they are rarely accessible experimentally. Chiral nematic liquid crystals…
Malleability of metals is an example of how dynamics of defects like dislocations induced by external stresses alters material properties and enables technological applications. However, these defects move merely to comply with the…
Topology establishes a unifying framework for a diverse range of scientific areas including particle physics, cosmology, and condensed matter physics. One of the most fascinating manifestations of topology in the context of condensed matter…
Three-dimensional (3D) simulations of the structure of liquid crystal (LC) torons, topologically protected distortions of the LC director field, under material flows are rare but essential in microfluidic applications. Here, we show that…
Topologically stable field configurations appear in many fields of physics, from elementary particles to condensed matter and cosmology. During the last decade, chiral liquid crystals and chiral magnets took on the role of model objects for…
Skyrmions are topological solitons that emerge in many physical contexts. In magnetism, they appear as textures of the spin-density field stabilized by different competing interactions and characterized by a topological charge that counts…
Topologically protected magnetic textures, such as skyrmions, half-skyrmions (merons) and their antiparticles, constitute tiny whirls in the magnetic order. They are promising candidates for information carriers in next-generation memory…
As an emerging field of robotics, magnetic-field-controlled soft microrobot has broad application prospects for its flexibility, locomotion diversity as well as remote controllability. Magnetic soft microrobots can perform multimodal…
Light provides a powerful means of controlling physical behavior of materials but is rarely used to power and guide active matter systems. We demonstrate optical control of liquid crystalline topological solitons dubbed "skyrmions", which…
The recently observed plasmonic skyrmions, as electromagnetic counterparts of topologically stable quasiparticles, hold significant promise as novel carriers for robust information transfer and manipulation of nontrivial light-matter…
Small-scale robots hold great potential for targeted cargo delivery in minimally-inv asive medicine. However, current robots often face challenges to locomote efficiently on slip pery biological tissue surfaces, especially when loaded with…
Creation and control of topological complex excitations play crucial roles in both fundamental physics and modern information science. Torons are a sophisticated class of 3D chiral polar topological structures with both skyrmionic…
Magnetic skyrmions are nanoscale spin configurations that can be efficiently created and manipulated. They hold great promises for next-generation spintronics applications. In parallel to these developments, the interplay of magnetism,…
We propose an alternative route to stabilize magnetic skyrmion textures which does not require Dzyaloshinkii-Moriya interaction, magnetic anisotropy, or an external Zeeman field. Instead, it solely relies on the emergence of flux in the…
Topological quasiparticles, such as merons and bimerons, are characterized by non-trivial textures that exhibit remarkably robust transport against deformation, offering significant potential for information processing. While these…
Networks of rigid bars connected by joints, termed linkages, provide a minimal framework to design robotic arms and mechanical metamaterials built out of folding components. Here, we investigate a chain-like linkage that, according to…
Skyrmions, originally from condensed matter physics, have been widely explored in various physical systems, including soft matter. A crucial challenge in manipulating topological solitary waves like skyrmions is controlling their flow on…