2025/09/22 by Tomer Bucher, Bucher, Tomer, Alexey Gorlach +53 · 1 voice
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Photonic Crystals and Applications #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum optics and atomic interactions
paper · doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10209-z
crossref issued 2026/03/25 · crossref published 2026/03/25 · crossref published-online 2026/03/25 · openalex publication_date 2026/03/25 · crossref created 2026/03/25 · crossref deposited 2026/03/25 · crossref published-print 2026/03/26 · openalex created_date 2026/03/26 · openalex updated_date 2026/03/27 · crossref indexed 2026/07/29
Phase singularities are universal features found across diverse wave systems. Their ensembles exhibit distance correlations governing exotic material phases. However, the full correlations in phase-space have remained unexplored and experimentally inaccessible. Here, we directly measure the ultrafast dynamics of optical singularity ensembles, capturing their phase-space correlations. Our observations reveal that phase singularities exhibit acceleration to unbounded velocities before annihilation, indicated by measurements of velocities exceeding the speed of light. These superluminal velocities are paradoxically amplified by the slow group velocity of hyperbolic phonon polaritons in our material platform, hexagonal boron nitride membranes. We demonstrate these phenomena using combined hardware and algorithmic advances in ultrafast electron microscopy, achieving spatial and temporal resolutions each an order of magnitude below the polaritonic wavelength and cycle period. Our findings enable probing topological defect dynamics at previously unattainable timescales, deepening our understanding of phase-singularity universality and suggesting phenomena of ultrafast information flow in polaritonic media.