{
  "id": 6404373,
  "title": "Optical vortices provide a natural way to create topologies",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/09/optical-vortices-provide-a-natural-way-to-create-topologies",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-09-09T09:26:01.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Physics World",
    "slug": "physics-world",
    "url": "https://physicsworld.com/a/optical-vortices-provide-a-natural-way-to-create-topologies/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Structured light, which refers to light with a designed spatial pattern, can be used to encode information and create topological field structures. However, these engineered patterns often degrade as the beam travels, limiting their practical applications. A team of researchers from Singapore and Spain have discovered a natural solution to this problem. They found that the dark core of an optical vortex, where the electric field vanishes, forms a topological texture and defect that does not spread or degrade during propagation. This region, called a meronic spin defect, exhibits a tiny, ordered spin pattern around the central point where the spin vanishes. These defects remain confined to subwavelength scales and are more stable against turbulence than engineered structures. While still a fundamental result, the discovery suggests that optical vortices could serve as exceptionally stable and compact building blocks for future structured-light technologies.",
  "summary": "New work suggests that building nontrivial topologies around optical vortices could be a better strategy than engineering delicate polarisation patterns across an entire beam The post Optical vortices provide a natural way to create topologies appeared first on Physics World .",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}