Emulating spin transport with nonlinear optics, from high-order skyrmions to the topological Hall effect

Exploring material magnetization led to countless fundamental discoveries and applications, culminating in the field of spintronics. Recently, research effort in this field focused on magnetic skyrmions - topologically robust chiral magnetization textures, capable of storing information and routing spin currents via the topological Hall effect. In this article, we propose an optical system emulating any 2D spin transport phenomena with unprecedented controllability, by employing three-wave mixing in 3D nonlinear photonic crystals. Precise photonic crystal engineering, as well as active all-optical control, enable the realization of effective magnetization textures beyond the limits of thermodynamic stability in current materials. As a proof-of-concept, we theoretically design skyrmionic nonlinear photonic crystals with arbitrary topologies and propose an optical system exhibiting the topological Hall effect. Our work paves the way towards quantum spintronics simulations and novel optoelectronic applications inspired by spintronics, for both classical and quantum optical information processing. Control of effective magnetization textures like skyrmions is limited by the thermodynamic stability in current materials. Here, the authors propose a 3D nonlinear photonic crystal to emulate 2D spin transport phenomena with excellent controllability.

Automated summary

The article introduces an optical system that can emulate 2D spin transport phenomena with unprecedented controllability by using a 3D nonlinear photonic crystal. The research shows that this system can effectively simulate and demonstrate the characteristics of skyrmionic nonlinear photonic crystals.