Researchers watch the dynamics of plasmonic skyrmions made from light on ultra-smooth gold platelets for the first time [Picture: Universities of Stuttgart, Duisburg-Essen and Melbourne]
Researchers watch the dynamics of plasmonic skyrmions made from light on ultra-smooth gold platelets for the first time [ Picture: Universities of Stuttgart, Duisburg-Essen and Melbourne] The destructive force of a tornado occurs due to the extremely high rotational speeds in its center, which is called "vortex". Surprisingly, similar effects as in such storms are predicted for light that travels along an atomically smooth gold surface. This light can exhibit angular momentum and vortices. Researchers at the Universities of Stuttgart and Duisburg-Essen and the University of Melbourne (Australia) have now succeeded for the first time in filming these vortex patterns on the nanometer scale, which are named "skyrmions" after their discoverer Tony Skyrme. The journal Science reports this groundbreaking work in its issue of April 24, 2020. When a figure skater starts to perform a pirouette and raises her arms, she turns around her own axis increasingly faster due to the conservation of angular momentum. On hot summer days, the same pirouette effect creates the so-called "dust devils" over harvested fields, i.e., small whirlwinds of hot air, and it also gives large tornadoes their destructive power.
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