UT Scientists Spied a Skyrmion. What is That?

May 12, 2025 • by Marc Airhart

This, and six other questions about a recent first in physics, answered.

A 3D vector field plot illustrating the direction and magnitude of vectors in a plane. Arrows are color-coded: blue arrows point towards a spot below the left side, red arrows point towards a point above the right side, and green arrows indicate intermediate directions and magnitudes.

A UT-led team observed an interlayer skyrmion—a swirling pattern of electric dipoles in an ultrathin material—for the first time in tungsten selenide (WSe2). Arrows indicate the direction in which electric dipoles point, with blue pointing down and red pointing up. Illustration credit: Fan Zhang/University of Texas at Austin.


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