Skyrmionic Topologies of Optical Forces for Stable Separation and Transportation of Chiral Nanoparticles

Optical skyrmions are topological quasiparticles revolutionizing optical detection, metrology, and communications. Owing to their topological properties and deep-subwavelength feature size, optical skyrmions are beneficial for the stable and precise manipulations of molecules and atoms for biomedicine and quantum applications. However, few studies have addressed the quasiparticles under light–matter interactions. In this work, we investigate the interactions between symmetry-broken optical beams and chiral dipolar nanoparticles to construct skyrmionic optical forces for chiral separation and transportation applications. We study the influence of material properties on diverse components of optical force and achieve the transition from Meron topology to skyrmion topology. We further demonstrate that the skyrmionic topology emerges prevalently in chiral–light interactions and the skyrmionic optical force exhibits excellent stability against external disturbances. Our findings uncover the underlying topological properties in light–matter interactions and enable robust manipulations of chiral nanoparticles.