Analysis of the Topology of a Plasmonic Target-Skyrmion Texture
Abstract
Topological concepts are frequently used to describe structured optical fields, including plasmonic near fields. Topological descriptions in terms of skyrmion numbers implicitly assume the compactness of the underlying manifold. Even when skyrmion-like textures appear locally, the compactness is usually not fulfilled in extended optical fields. Here, we use photoemission electron microscopy to investigate a plasmonic nano-focus that exhibits a sequence of radially extending alternating skyrmion and antiskyrmion textures. The full spatio-temporal reconstruction of the electric field vectors and their topology is accessible by vector polarimetry. The experiments confirm the expected oscillatory behavior of the skyrmion number and demonstrate that a global skyrmion number cannot be assigned in such non-compact fields.
Versions
Related
- Point-gap topology of damped magnon excitations in skyrmion strings
- Skyrmion topology of scalar waves in real and momentum space
- Chirally pinned flat bands, helical minibands, and bias-controlled topology of Jackiw-Rebbi states in a periodically modulated Dirac mass texture
- A Topology-Aware Quantum-Classical Framework for Multi-Target Active Debris Removal using Gaussian Boson Sampling
- Suppression of the skyrmion Hall effect in planar nanomagnets by the magnetic properties engineering: Skyrmion transport on nanotracks with magnetic strips
BibTeX
@misc{neuhaus2026analysis,
title = {{Analysis of the Topology of a Plasmonic Target-Skyrmion Texture}},
author = {Alexander Neuhaus and Pascal Dreher and Philipp Gessler and Bettina Frank and Timothy J. Davis and Harald Giessen and Karin Everschor-Sitte and Frank-J. Meyer zu Heringdorf},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2607.15046},
eprint = {2607.15046},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.15046},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Analysis of the Topology of a Plasmonic Target-Skyrmion Texture
AU - Alexander Neuhaus
AU - Pascal Dreher
AU - Philipp Gessler
AU - Bettina Frank
AU - Timothy J. Davis
AU - Harald Giessen
AU - Karin Everschor-Sitte
AU - Frank-J. Meyer zu Heringdorf
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/16
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2607.15046
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.15046
AB - Topological concepts are frequently used to describe structured optical fields, including plasmonic near fields. Topological descriptions in terms of skyrmion numbers implicitly assume the compactness of the underlying manifold. Even when skyrmion-like textures appear locally, the compactness is usually not fulfilled in extended optical fields. Here, we use photoemission electron microscopy to investigate a plasmonic nano-focus that exhibits a sequence of radially extending alternating skyrmion and antiskyrmion textures. The full spatio-temporal reconstruction of the electric field vectors and their topology is accessible by vector polarimetry. The experiments confirm the expected oscillatory behavior of the skyrmion number and demonstrate that a global skyrmion number cannot be assigned in such non-compact fields.
ER -