Chirality, a geometric property that distinguishes an object from its mirror image, is a foundational concept in physics. It appears in the asymmetry of a hand, in the spiral of DNA, in the helicity of neutrinos in the standard model of particle physics, and even in the structure of galaxies. Chirality also organizes fields, such as circularly polarized light, and excitations in matter, such as graphene’s low-energy electronic quasiparticles, effectively massless fermions whose handedness is tied to the direction of motion. In each case, chirality is more than just a visual feature; it affects how particles interact, limits their behavior, and produces measurable effects.
In condensed-matter physics, chirality is also manifested in magnetic skyrmions, illustrated in figure 1 , which are nanoscale spin textures characterized by smooth spatial winding and topology that protects them against small perturbations. (See the 2020 PT article “The emergence of magnetic skyrmions ,” by Alexei Bogdanov and Christos Panagopoulos.) First proposed in particle physics and later identified in magnetic systems, skyrmions bridge abstract mathematics and real materials. Recognized for their robustness, small size, and efficient response to tiny currents, magnetic skyrmions have been explored in the past decade for ultradense memory, reconfigurable logic, and neuromorphic devices in the field of spintronics.
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