2025年9月16日，上海科技大学Zhan, Qiwen团队在《光：科学与应用》杂志发表论文，他们提出了光学时空天幕的构建。

光子天幕的创建和操作为光-物质相互作用、光通信和纳米计量学提供了新的自由度。由于天幕内的局域涡旋是由相结构的扭曲和旋度产生的，因此光的轨道角动量对其形成至关重要。虽然已经提出了许多天元织构，但它们都是在空间范围内形成的，并由纵向轨道角动量诱导。

研究组从理论上提出并实验观察皮秒脉冲波包内的时空天空，通过时空波包的矢量雕刻产生。在矢量场的时空分布中出现的天元织构包含了所有可能的偏振态。基于横向轨道角动量构建的时空天幕，与空间天幕不同，没有垂直于天幕平面的螺旋扭曲，显示出潜在的抗变形或扰动的稳定性。这些结果扩展了skyrmion家族，并为光学准粒子提供了新的见解，可能导致光学计量，传感和数据存储方面的先进应用。

附：英文原文

Title: Construction of optical spatiotemporal skyrmions

Author: Teng, Houan, Liu, Xin, Zhang, Nianjia, Fan, Haihao, Chen, Guoliang, Cao, Qian, Zhong, Jinzhan, Lei, Xinrui, Zhan, Qiwen

Issue&Volume: 2025-09-16

Abstract: The creation and manipulation of photonic skyrmions provide a novel degree of freedom for light-matter interactions, optical communication and nanometrology. Since the localized vortex within skyrmions arises from the twist and curl of the phase structure, the orbital angular momentum of light is essential for their construction. While numerous skyrmionic textures have been proposed, they are formed within the spatial domain and induced by the longitudinal orbital angular momentum. Here we theoretically propose and experimentally observe spatiotemporal skyrmions within a picosecond pulse wavepacket, generated through vectorial sculpturing of spatiotemporal wavepackets. The skyrmionic textures emerge within the spatiotemporal distribution of a vector field encompass all possible polarization states. Constructed upon the transverse orbital angular momentum, spatiotemporal skyrmions, in contrast to spatial skyrmions, exhibit no helical twisting perpendicular to the skyrmion plane, demonstrating potential stability against deformations or perturbations. These results expand the skyrmion family and offer new insights into optical quasiparticles, potentially leading to advanced applications in optical metrology, sensing, and data storage.

DOI: 10.1038/s41377-025-02028-0

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-025-02028-0