Squirming motion of baby skyrmions in nematic fluids

Paul J. Ackerman, Timothy Boyle and Ivan I. Smalyukh ()
Additional contact information
Paul J. Ackerman: University of Colorado
Timothy Boyle: University of Colorado
Ivan I. Smalyukh: University of Colorado

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Skyrmions are topologically protected continuous field configurations that cannot be smoothly transformed to a uniform state. They behave like particles and give origins to the field of skyrmionics that promises racetrack memory and other technological applications. Unraveling the non-equilibrium behavior of such topological solitons is a challenge. We realize skyrmions in a chiral liquid crystal and, using numerical modeling and polarized video microscopy, demonstrate electrically driven squirming motion. We reveal the intricate details of non-equilibrium topology-preserving textural changes driving this behavior. Direction of the skyrmion’s motion is robustly controlled in a plane orthogonal to the applied field and can be reversed by varying frequency. Our findings may spur a paradigm of soliton dynamics in soft matter, with a rich interplay between topology, chirality, and orientational viscoelasticity.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00659-5 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-017-00659-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00659-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().