Researchers explore how topological patterns in light affect the motion of magnetic nanostructures, leading to many potential applications

Magnetic skyrmions (MSks) are nanoscale patterns of magnetization that can be created and moved around in magnetic materials. Despite being promising information carriers for future memory and computing technologies, precise control of their motion remains challenging. Now, researchers from Japan used micromagnetic simulations to investigate how MSks interact with optical skyrmions, their light-based counterparts. Their findings provide a new framework for controlling MSks with light, potentially connecting photonics and magnetism with promising applications.

Magnetic skyrmions (MSks) are swirling patterns of magnetization that form inside certain magnetic materials. They can behave like actual particles in many ways, exhibiting a stable internal structure and distinct boundaries. Because they are extremely small and can be pushed around with relatively little energy, MSks are regarded as promising information carriers in emerging technologies, including low-power memories and logic circuits. However, a major goal in the field has been to find practical ways to control their motion with high precision.

Interestingly, MSks have a counterpart in light called optical skyrmions (OSks). These are structured polarization textures of electromagnetic fields that share the same underlying topological description as MSks. Despite their common topology, the two have been largely studied separately in their respective fields of magnetism and photonics. This raises a fundamental question: Can the topology of light control the dynamics of a MSk?

A research team led by Professor Masahito Mochizuki in the Department of Applied Physics at Waseda University, Japan, and Dr. Lan Bo, a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) postdoctoral fellow at Waseda University, attempted to fill the knowledge gap using micromagnetic simulations. Their study, co-authored by Dr. Xichao Zhang, a former research Associate Professor at Waseda University, was published online in Physical Review Letters journal on September 14, 2026.

Explaining the motivation behind their pioneering study, Dr. Bo explains, “The inspiration for this study came from a simple question: What happens when two different forms of topology, one in matter and one in light, meet? What fascinated us is that MSks and OSks are physically very different, that is, one exists in a magnetic material and the other in an electromagnetic field, but they are described by essentially the same topological concept.” He adds, “We therefore asked whether the topology and internal structure of light could directly control the dynamics of a topological magnetic texture.”

In their study, the team demonstrated the novel interaction between two forms of similar topologies: MSk and OSk. They explored how an OSk beam affects the motion of a single MSk on a thin magnetic layer. The beam was created using two types of structured light known as Laguerre-Gaussian modes, whose phase and polarization properties combined give rise to a skyrmion polarization pattern. The researchers then simulated how this generated optical field may drive the motion of the MSk using equations describing the light’s effect on magnetization and the internal dynamics of the magnetic material.

By analyzing the simulation results, the team identified three distinct types of motion in the MSk. The first type was a rotational motion around a fixed orbit, with its radius defined by the intensity gradient of the light. The second type corresponded to localized deviations from this orbit, which the researchers called ‘skipping.’ The third type was a looping trajectory known as trochoidal motion.

The researchers showed that each of these behaviors could be traced back to different properties of the incident light field. Most notably, the direction of the skipping motion was controlled by the swirling direction or ‘helicity’ of the vector field in the OSk, as well as the chirality or handedness of the MSk.

Simply put, the results suggest that changes in the intensity, phase, and polarization structure of the optical field can be used to precisely alter the trajectory of a MSk. “Our findings establish a new bridge between topological photonics and topological magnetism, opening a route toward contact-free and programmable control of MSks,” explains Prof. Mochizuki.

“For example, the induced rotational motion could potentially provide a basis for optically trapping and manipulation of MSks, analogous to optical tweezers, while the helicity-controlled skipping motion could enable selective trajectory steering and conversion of optical information into magnetic motion. The trochoidal motion may also provide an optically tunable oscillator-like response,” Dr. Bo further elaborates.

This interaction between information encoded in the structure of light and magnetic motion could provide a foundation for future optomagnonics (controlling magnetic properties using light) and spintronic (process and store data using electron charge and spin) technologies. Prof. Mochizuki concludes: “Future information technologies require faster, smaller, and more energy-efficient ways to store and process information, and MSks are attractive candidates for such technologies. By showing how the trajectory of a MSk could be optically controlled, our work reveals a new principle for connecting photonic information processing with spintronic information storage and computation.”