Imagine what it would feel like to wear a skyrmion. Could skyrmions communicate while twisting like flexible electronic devices? That, in essence, is what recently reported by a research team led by Prof. Yijie Shen from NTU Singapore.
Reporting in Advanced Materials , the scientists have built a flexible microwave device that can generate Stokes skyrmions in free space, even when the device is bent or partly broken. These exotic field structures are more than just curious patterns. Their defining feature, a quantity called topological charge, remains unchanged under deformation. That means the device could one day help encode information in ways that resist distortion—an appealing property for future wireless communication systems.
Skyrmions are swirling patterns in a field that carry a robust mathematical property known as topology. Imagine twisting a rubber band into a knot—you can bend or stretch it, but without cutting it, the knot stays the same. Similarly, skyrmions preserve their structure even when conditions change.
Scientists first studied skyrmions in magnets and optics. But until now, it has been difficult to realize them reliably at microwave frequencies, which are widely used in wireless systems.
"Microwaves are the backbone of modern communication—from Wi-Fi to radar to satellite links. Most current devices rely on rigid, flat surfaces that must remain precisely engineered to work properly. We break through these limitations, " says senior author Yijie Shen.
A flexible metasurface that continues to work—even when bent or damaged—could lead to new types of flexible antennas, wearable communication systems, or robust wireless links that survive physical stress.
He added “For the first time, we have not only created microwave skyrmions but also experimentally verified the impact of structural changes on skyrmion properties. Unlike previous implementations in rigid materials, these structures now exist within flexible structures, serving as carriers for next-generation information transmission platforms.”
Their next step is to verify whether stable, high-speed, and interference-resistant microwave communication can be achieved by integrating wearable communication devices based on the topological protection of skyrmions. This would be a significant milestone for skyrmions in microwave communication.
Advanced Materials
Free-form flexible metasurfaces robustly generating microwave skyrmions