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Skymionic beams

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 Skyrmionic Beams

Sijia Gao,1, ∗ Jörg B. Götte,1, 2, † Fiona C. Speirits,1 Neal Radwell,1 Sonja Franke-Arnold,1 and Stephen M. Barnett1, ‡
1
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
2
College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
(Dated: June 14, 2019)
Vector vortex beams possess a topological property that derives both from the spatially varying
amplitude of the field and also from its varying polarization. This property arises as a consequence
of the inherent Skyrmionic nature of such beams and is quantified by the associated Skyrmion
number. We now illustrate this idea for some of the simplest vector beams and discuss the physical
significance of the Skyrmion number in this context for optical or electron beams.
arXiv:1906.05333v1 [physics.optics] 12 Jun 2019

Both optical and electron beams have a vector char- of the Poincaré vector for light or the Bloch vector for an
acter, the former directly associated with the electro- electron beam as shown in Fig. 1. In terms of our locally
magnetic fields, the latter by virtue of the direction of normalized state it is
the electron spin. When orthogonal vector components
are given different spatial amplitudes and a phase differ- M = hψ(r)|σ|ψ(r)i , (3)
ence a polarization (or spin) pattern results [1–4]. Impor-
tant examples include the vector vortex beams in which where σ is a vector operator with the familiar Pauli ma-
the polarization varies as we move around the centre of trices as Cartesian components. The ith component of
the beam [5–8]. We show here that there is a Skyrmion the associated Skyrmion field is
field associated with this behavior and that the associ- 1 ∂Mq ∂Mr
ated Skyrmion number is readily identified with a simple Σi = ijk pqr Mp , (4)
2 ∂xj ∂xk
topological property of the vector beam.
Skyrmions were first proposed for the study of mesons where ijk is the alternating or Levi-Civita symbol and
[9, 10], but the idea has since found wide application we employ the summation convention. The Skyrmion
in many areas of physics including quantum liquids [11– number is
13], in magnetic materials [14–16] and in the study of Z
fractional statistics [17]. Recently they have been ob- 1
n= Σz dxdy , (5)
served in optics by the controlled interference of plas- 4π
mon polaritons [18, 19]. We show here that a wide range where we have chosen the z-axis to define the direction of
of freely propagating optical beams also possess a non- propagation and the integral runs over the whole of the
trivial Skyrmion field and with it a Skyrmion number, the transverse plane. The form of the Skyrmion field ensures
value of which is simply related to a topological property that it is transverse (∇ · Σ = 0). This means that there
of the beam. are no sources or sinks for the Skyrmion field and the
We consider a paraxial beam of either light [20, 21] associated field lines can only form loops or extend to
or electrons [22–24] and express the local polarization or infinity [27]. It follows that the flux of
spin direction in the form H the Skyrmion
field through any closed surface is zero, Σ · dS = 0.
|Ψ(r)i = u0 (r)|0i + eiθ0 u1 (r)|1i . (1) Optical vector vortex beams typically have a rotat-
ing polarization pattern that originates from the differen-
Here |0i and |1i represent any two orthogonal polariza- tial orbital angular momentum of the contributing modes
tion states, while u0 (r) and u1 (r) are two orthogonal spa- [4, 6] and exhibit intriguing topological [28–31] and fo-
tial modes [25] and the global phase difference between cussing properties [32, 33]. We consider the simplest
the two modes is denoted by θ0 . That this decomposi- case of such beams in which the two orthogonal modes,
tion is always possible follows from the familiar Schmidt with amplitudes u0 (r) and u1 (r), are Laguerre-Gaussian
decomposition [26]. The Skyrmion field and number de- modes
pend only on the spatial variation of the polarization or s √ !|`|
spin direction and for this reason it is convenient to work −ρ2
 
` 2p! 1 ρ 2
with a locally-normalized state in the form up (ρ, φ, z) = exp
π(p + |`|)! w(z) w(z) w2 (z)
|0i + eiθ0 v(r)|1i 2ρ2 ρ2 z − z0
   
|ψ(r)i = , (2) |`| i`φ
p × Lp e exp −i 2
1 + |v(r)|2 w2 (z) w (z) zR
  
−1 z − z0
where v(r) = u1 (r)/u0 (r). × exp −i(2p + |`| + 1) tan .
The Skyrmion field is most readily defined in terms of zR
an effective magnetization M , which is the local direction (6)

FIG. 1. Poincaré and Bloch sphere for the polarization
and effective magnetization M . We encode the degree of
circular polarization S3 and the z component Mz on the same
color scheme. For definitness we choose in our examples the
polarization states |0i and |1i to correspond to left and right
handed circular polarization respectively or, for electrons, the
eigenstates of the z component of the spin.
familiar from the study of orbital angular momentum
2 with `1 = 1 and `0 = 0 and the same radial index p = 0
[34–38]. Here
p zR = πw0 /λ is the Rayleigh range and
2
w(z) = w0 1 + (z − z0 ) /zR 2 is the beam width on prop-
agation. We assume that the modes have the same wave-
length λ, but they may differ in the beam parameters
`, p, w0 and the focal position z0 . These modes have a
vortex of strength ` on the z-axis, which is associated
with a z-component of the orbital angular momentum of
`~ per photon (or electron) [34–38]. Modes with different
angular momentum numbers ` are orthogonal and if we
choose two such modes for our two complex amplitudes
u0 and u1 in (1) then the function v(r) in (2) for the
locally normalized state |ψ(r)i has the general form
v(r) = f (ρ, z)eiθ(ρ,z) ei∆`φ ,
where ∆` = `1 − `0 , f and θ are real functions of the
coordinates ρ and z and θ incorporates all phase terms
including θ0 , the phase difference between the modes. It
is straightforward to calculate the Skyrmion field and
from this the Skyrmion number for our vector vortex
beam. We find the simple result that for such beams
the Skyrmion number is
 
1 1
n = ∆` − , (8)
1 + f 2 (0, z) 1 + f 2 (∞, z)
2
FIG. 2. An illustration of the superposition given in Eq. (1),
when the two spatial modes are Laguerre-Gaussian modes
focusing at the same point: a) A schematic diagram of the
resulting beam showing a cut through the surface where the
spatial modes u0 (blue) and u1 (red) have equal amplitude
together with the intensity profile at two planes A and C.
Inside the mode u0 with `0 = 0 dominates while outside the
mode u1 prevails; b) Enlarged polarization pattern and c)
spiralling M vector field when the phase difference between
u1 and u2 is close to π2 . Both correspond to the transverse
plane A. d) The polarization pattern and e) the M vector
field when there is no phase difference between u0 and u1 ,
here taken at the common focus at B where the Gouy phase
is equal for both beams. In this case the pattern of the M
vector field clearly resembles that of a hedgehog Skyrmion.
(7)
the value of which is determined only by which of the
two modes u0 (r) and u1 (r) dominates on the z-axis, the
location of the vortex, and which dominates as ρ tends
to infinity.
The simplest Skyrmionic beams to construct comprise
a superposition of orthogonal polarization (or spin) states
multiplied by p = 0 Laguerre-Gaussian modes with the
same beam width, a common focal point and with or-
bital angular momentum differing by one. In this case
(7) simplifies to v(r) = A(z)ρeiφ (where A is generally
complex and includes the overall phase difference θ0 ) and

FIG. 3. The vector field M of a propagating parax-
ial beam when the spatial components are two Laguerre-
Gaussian modes with a difference of 2 in their winding num-
bers `0 and `1 : a) an achiral Skyrmion, i.e. no phase dif-
ference between u0 and u1 ; b) a chiral Skyrmion, when the
phase difference is π2 .
one polarization dominates at the position of the vortex
with the orthogonal polarization appearing as ρ → ∞.
We provide two examples of such polarization patterns
in Figs. 2c and 2e. The local Bloch or Poincaré vector,
representing the local spin or polarization direction, is
clearly reminiscent of the spiral and hedgehog Skyrmions,
familiar from the study of magnetic Skyrmions [15]; the
former arises when A is real and the latter when it is
imaginary. We note that the natural propagation of the
beam will cause the polarization pattern to evolve con-
tinuously from one of these forms into the other by virtue
of the relative Gouy phase [21] that changes as the beam
propagates.
We can design Skyrmionic beams with more structure
than the simple hedgehog and spiral Skyrmions by su-
perposing Laguerre-Gaussian beams with orbital angu-
lar momentum numbers that differ by more than one. In
Fig. 3 we plot the local Bloch or Poincaré vector for a
pair of modes with ∆` = 2. We see that, both in this
case and in Fig. 2, these vectors rotate as we traverse a
path around the vortex and, moreover, that along such
a path the vector completes two rotations if ∆` = 2 but
only one rotation if ∆` = 1. These are examples of a
more general result that for a superposition of modes
with a difference in orbital angular momentum number
of ∆`, the Bloch or Poincaré vector rotates ∆` times on
a path enclosing the vortex. This behavior persists when
we consider modes with radial indices different from zero,
although the polarization structure becomes more intri-
cate because of the additional nodal lines. The resulting
Skyrmion number is nevertheless governed by the differ-
ence in dominating behavior described in (8)
The corresponding Skyrmion number is ∆` if the spin
or polarization states at the vortex position and at infin-
ity are orthogonal but will be zero if they are the same.
This dependence of the Skyrmion number on both the
difference in the orbital angular momentum or vortex
charges, ∆`, and the change in the polarization between
the position of the vortex and at large distances from it
clearly demonstrates that the Skyrmion field and num-
ber are topological properties of both the spin and orbital
angular momenta.
The fact that the Skyrmion field, Σ, is divergenceless
3
suggests that the Skyrmion number, as we have defined
it, should be conserved on propagation. This is not true,
however, and the simplest way to demonstrate this is
to consider a superposition of Laguerre-Gaussian beams
that are focussed at different positions along the z-axis.
The effect of this is that the polarization behavior at
large values of ρ changes as the beam propagates and the
Skyrmion number changes from ∆` to 0 (or from 0 to
∆`). This behavior is depicted in Fig. 4, where we see
that the polarization at large distances from the central
vortex changes abruptly at one transverse plane and with
it the Skyrmion number. To see how this happens, con-
sider a circular-cylindrical surface of radius R centered
on the position of the vortex extending from −z0 to z0 .
In general, there will be a flux through this surface of the
Skyrmion field, Σ:
Z 2π Z z0
dφ dz Σρ =
0 −z
 0 
1 1
∆` − . (9)
1 + f 2 (R, −z0 ) 1 + f 2 (R, z0 )
Clearly, this will take a non-zero value if f 2 (R, −z0 ) 6=
f 2 (R, z0 ). If we allow R to tend to infinity then a non-
zero value of this flux corresponds to a situation in which
the polarization at large distances from the vortex differs
at −z0 and at z0 . This is what happens if the Skyrmion
number changes between −z0 and z0 .
We have shown that vector vortex beams, either of
light or electrons, possess a topological property that can
be identified with a Skyrmion number. The associated
Skyrmion field is transverse (or divergenceless) and this
means that there are no sinks or sources of this field.
The Skyrmion number for a beam can change on free
space propagation, however, if Skyrmion field lines escape
radially out of the beam towards regions of negligible
intensity. Demonstrating these properties requires the
preparation of vector vortex beams and measurement of
the polarization or spin in planes perpendicular to the
beam axis [40]. We shall report on such experiments
elsewhere.
We close by emphasising that the Skyrmionic prop-
erty of vector beams is distinct from the familiar spin
and orbital angular momentum of optical beams [34–
39]. It is true that the beams we consider here combine
optical vortices and polarization, commonly associated
with orbital and spin angular momentum respectively,
but the Skyrmion number is a topological rather than a
mechanical property of the beam. To see this we note
that the Skyrmion number is unchanged if we apply a
global transformation of the polarization. Moreover, we
have seen that it is possible for the Skyrmion number to
change if the two superimposed modes are focussed in
different places. The total spin and angular momentum
passing through each transverse plane, however, remains
unchanged.

FIG. 4. An illustration of the paraxial beam given in Equa-
tion (1), when the two spatial modes are Laguerre-Gaussian
beams with `0 = 0 and `1 = 1, and the same radial index
p = 0 focusing at different points −z0 and z0 . It shows a clear
change of Skyrmion number as it propagates. a) A schematic
diagram of the beam showing a single surface of equal ampli-
tude for z < 0 and two such surfaces for z > 0. This indicates
that in this region the mode u0 (blue) with `0 = 0 is dominant
both on the axis and at large radial distances. b) and c) The
polarization pattern and effective magnetization in the region
at plane A (z < 0) showing the variation familiar from Fig. 2
with Skyrmion number 1. The polarization pattern changes
suddenly at B (z = 0) to one where the polarization both on
the axis and on the radial periphery is determined by |0i. d)
and e) The polarization pattern and effective magnetization
at C (z > 0) with Skyrmion number 0.
This work was supported by a Royal Society Research
Professorship, grant number RP150122, and by the UK
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council,
grant number EP/R008264/1.
∗
s.gao2@research.glasgow.ac.uk
†
Joerg.Goette@glasgow.ac.uk
‡
Stephen.Barnett@glasgow.ac.uk
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