Optically enriched and guided dynamics of active skyrmions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how light can be used to control and reconfigure active skyrmions in liquid crystals, enabling large-scale collective behavior manipulation through optical and electric field techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for optically controlling active skyrmions in liquid crystals, combining electric fields and patterned illumination for dynamic reconfiguration.

Findings

Large-scale reconfiguration of skyrmions achieved with ambient light.

Optical guidance enables unjamming and directed motion of skyrmions.

Electric fields combined with light control skyrmion collective behavior.

Abstract

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 recently emerged as highly reconfigurable inanimate active particles capable of exhibiting emergent collective behaviors like schooling. Because of a chiral nematic liquid crystal's natural tendency to twist and its facile response to electric fields and light, it serves as a testbed for dynamic control of skyrmions and other active particles. Using ambient-intensity unstructured light, we demonstrate large-scale multifaceted reconfigurations and unjamming of collective skyrmion motions powered by oscillating electric fields and guided by optically-induced obstacles and patterned illumination.