Photonics of topological magnetic textures

Abstract

Topological textures in magnetically ordered materials are important case studies for fundamental research with promising applications in data science. They can also serve as photonic elements to mold electromagnetic fields endowing them with features inherent to the spin order, as demonstrated analytically and numerically in this work. A self-consistent theory is developed for the interaction of spatially structured electromagnetic fields with non-collinear, topologically non-trivial spin textures. A tractable numerical method is designed and implemented for the calculation of the formed magnetic/photonic textures in the entire simulation space. Numerical illustrations are presented for scattering from point-like singularities, i.e. Bloch points, in the magnetization vector fields, evidencing that the geometry and topology of the magnetic order results in photonic fields that embody orbital angular momentum, chirality as well as magnetoelectric densities. Features of the scattered fields can serve as a fingerprint for the underlying magnetic texture and its dynamics. The findings point to the potential of topological magnetic textures as a route to molding photonic fields.