Poisson spots, a light phenomenon first discovered two centuries ago, have been employed by researchers at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), to produce optical skyrmions, a stable light pattern, with major implications for cutting-edge data storage research.
Published in the journal Optica, the NTU researchers describe producing small, swirling optical skyrmions using only a laser focused on a small disk, thereby eliminating the need for complex, expensive equipment typically required to achieve the same effect.
The NTU team’s breakthrough allows optical scientists to generate, control, and study this optical light phenomenon much more easily than before.
Data in Light
In the search for optimal data storage and retrieval methods, scientists have been considering skyrmions as a potential next-generation solution for communication and computing applications. Earlier skyrmion work required metamaterials engineered with complex microstructures, although at great expense.
“What is remarkable is that optical skyrmions can now be generated using a simple effect where light bends around an object, without relying on expensive, complex man-made metamaterials or highly specialised techniques,” explained co-author Shen Yijie, of NTU’s School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
“This could make optical skyrmions much more accessible to researchers,” Shen continued. “By lowering the technical barrier to creating and studying them, the method opens up new possibilities for scientists to study how they could be used in future optical, materials, and computing research.”
The Nature of Light
Scientists have been interested in the Poisson spot since the early 19th century, as part of the debate over whether light travels as waves or particles. When a coherent light source—in this case, a laser—strikes a circular object, a bright point appears at the center of its shadow. That bright point is what physicists refer to as the Poisson spot.
This is created by light diffraction, the bending and spreading that occurs when it moves through an object or a small opening. Nineteenth-century experiments, which produced the Poisson spot instead of the solid darkness normally expected of a shadow, were major evidence for diffraction—the wave-like behavior of light.
Skyrmions have been studied from many angles over the years, first out of an interest in particle physics and nuclear physics; then in condensed matter physics and magnetic materials research, and now in photonics.
Producing Skyrmions
The new Poisson spot-based system developed by the NTU team creates four distinct patterns at the same time: spin skyrmions, Stokes skyrmions, electric-field skyrmions, and magnetic-field skyrmions. Spin describes how the light rotates, while Stokes parameters quantify the light wave’s polarization as it travels.
By possessing this “four-in-one” behavior, the researchers say these expressions could provide a valuable opportunity to study skyrmion formations, variety, and interaction within a single light field.
The NTU team’s simulations of skyrmions depict them as swirls of arrows, enabling researchers to track how light’s properties change direction as it traverses the Poisson spot. The intensity, phase, polarization, spin, electric, and magnetic field vectors of light can all be manipulated by scientists to create patterns in light called topological structures, enabling researchers to control the size, shape, and behavior of skyrmions.
“In the light spot that we created, several types of optical vectors could form topological structures at the same time,” Shen explained. “These different components of light are closely connected, but they do not necessarily form identical topological patterns.”
“Being able to produce and compare several skyrmions within one system could help researchers uncover new links between light’s electric, magnetic, and other physical properties,” Shen concluded.
Going forward, the NTU team hopes that their work will help to quite literally illuminate a new path for the future of data storage and communications technologies.
The paper, “Optical Skyrmions in Poisson Spots,” appeared in Optica on June 18, 2026.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.