Laser Data Transmission Achieves 98% Fidelity Over Hundreds of Meters Using Skyrmions

The team encoded optical data into magnetic structures within light called skyrmions. These tiny magnetic patterns acted as a protective shield, allowing the data to travel with the light without being distorted by the surrounding environment. In the experiment's most severe conditions, fidelity still remained at 86 percent.

The approach works because the data is encoded into the light's topological profile, a property that remains unchanged under deformation. Project leader Professor Andrew Forbes of the Wits School of Physics compared this to the way a donut and a coffee mug both have a hole — if you reshape one into the other, the hole remains. Likewise, light can be warped by heat and noise without corrupting the data it carries.

Previously, open-air data transmissions required real-time monitoring and correction to counter distortion. The new technique may eliminate that necessity, lowering both the difficulty and cost of such communication. It could be particularly useful for space missions, where fiber-optic cables are not feasible, as well as for high-speed satellite communications and quantum computing. On the ground, it might enable high-speed internet to be beamed to rural communities without building expensive fiber-optic networks.

“We envision that our results will pave the way towards seeing and transporting information through distortion by harnessing light's innate, invariant properties for fast, reliable, and efficient communication,” the researchers wrote in the study.