Light usually travels in straight lines, but what if it could twist, spiral, and behave like a miniature tornado? Scientists have now made this possible by creating optical tornadoes (also called optical vortices)—tiny, swirling structures of light inside a microscopic system.
Until now, producing such complex light patterns required bulky setups or intricate nanostructures, making them hard to scale. A new study changes this by using a surprisingly simple material called liquid crystals.
This novel approach is more than just a visual trick. It could reshape how we build lasers, communication devices, and even future quantum technologies.
“Our solution combines several fields of physics, from quantum mechanics, through materials engineering, to optics and solid-state physics,” Jacek Szczytko, one of the study’s authors and a physicist at the University of Warsaw, said.
Trapping light inside liquid crystal whirlpools
The team drew inspiration from quantum physics, where electrons occupy specific energy levels inside atoms. They recreated a similar idea for light—not by trapping electrons, but by trapping photons (particles of light).
To do this, they used liquid crystals, materials that flow like liquids but have an ordered internal structure like solids. Inside these materials, the researchers created tiny defects called torons.
Torons “can be imagined as tightly twisted spirals, similar to DNA, along which the liquid crystal molecules are arranged. If such a spiral is closed by joining its ends into a ring resembling a doughnut, we obtain a toron,” Mędrzycka said.
These torons act as microscopic traps for light. However, trapping light alone wasn’t enough—they also needed to make it twist.
Bending light with a fake magnetic field
Here’s where things get interesting. Light normally doesn’t respond to magnetic fields the way charged particles, such as electrons, do. So the researchers created a synthetic magnetic field instead.
This wasn’t a real magnetic field, but a carefully engineered effect inside the liquid crystal. They achieved this using birefringence, where light of different polarizations travels differently through a material.
By making this effect vary across space, they forced light to behave as if it were under a magnetic field—causing it to bend and spiral, much like electrons moving in circular orbits.
“We call it ‘synthetic’ because its mathematical description resembles the behavior of a magnetic field, even though physically it isn’t there. As a result, light begins to ‘bend,’ much like electrons moving in cyclotron orbits,” Piotr Kapuściński, one of the study authors and a physics professor at the University of Warsaw, said.
To strengthen and stabilize this behavior, the team placed the system inside an optical microcavity—a structure made of mirrors that bounce light back and forth. This keeps the light confined for longer, amplifying the effect. They could even tune the system using an external voltage, adjusting the size of the trap and the properties of the light.
The biggest achievement came next. Normally, swirling light (which carries orbital angular momentum) only appears in higher-energy, unstable states. However, here, the researchers managed to produce it in the ground state.
“For the first time, we managed to obtain this effect in the ground state, i.e., the lowest-energy state. This is significant because the ground state is the most stable and the easiest for energy to accumulate in,” Guillaume Malpuech, one of the study authors and a professor at Université Clermont Auvergne in France, said.
To prove that this ground state could indeed support efficient lasing, the team added a laser dye.
This resulted in a “light that not only rotates but also behaves like laser light: it is coherent and has a well-defined energy and emission direction,” Marcin Muszyński, the first study author, added.
From swirling photons to next-gen tech
This work shows that complex light structures don’t always require complex engineering. By using self-organizing materials like liquid crystals, scientists can create stable, swirling light in a much simpler and scalable way.
This could lead to compact lasers with new properties, improved optical communication systems, and better tools for quantum computing and information processing. It may also help in manipulating microscopic objects, since structured light can exert precise forces.
However, the research is still at an early stage. These systems need to be tested for stability, efficiency, and real-world integration into devices. Therefore, scaling them up while maintaining control over the light’s behavior will be the focus of future research.
The study is published in the journal Science Advances.