Generation of Extreme-ultraviolet spatiotemporal skyrmions and vector hopfions

Paraxial optical skyrmions, defined by Stokes vectors, have attracted significant attention due to their ability to propagate in free space with preserved topological structures. Recently, this exotic topological structured light has been extended to the spatiotemporal domain, though so far only in the visible and near-infrared regimes. The team led by Academician Zhuang Songlin and Professor Yi Liu at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology theoretically explores, for the first time, the generation and control mechanisms of extreme-ultraviolet spatiotemporal skyrmions based on the high-harmonic generation process. The discovery is published in the journal PhotoniX.

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