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Topology has played a central role in modern physics. New phases of matter and phase transitions (1, 2), as well as electronic band theory (3), are understood in terms of topological concepts. On page 1449 of this issue, Tai and Smalyukh (4) harness topology to create a fundamentally new type of crystal, built with knots tied in a chiral fluid (see the figure). They used a liquid crystal doped with a chiral molecule, which caused all of the molecules to rotate like a corkscrew along a preferred direction, the helical axis. Using electric fields, they created vortex lines in the helical axis and tied them into knots that act like 鈥渁toms鈥� but on the micrometer scale. Different knotted particles were created by careful illumination with laser tweezers, and their interactions were tuned so that they spontaneously assembled into two- or three-dimensional lattices.

Gareth Alexander's paper appears in Science, Vol. 365, Issue 6460, pp. 1377

DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz0479

The LHCb collaboration has, this week, published long-awaited results on matter-antimatter asymmetries in B+ 鈫� 蟺+蟺+蟺鈭� decays, explaining the curious variation of the asymmetry across the phase space.

Professor Sandra Chapman is part of the Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics in the Physics Department and is taking part in the British Science Festival happening on campus in September.

Click for a short video featuring Sandra explaining her research, and details of the event at the British Science Festival.

Assistant Professor and Royal Society Dorthy Hodgkin Fellow in the Astronomy and Astrophysics group Farzana Meru researches planet formation, planet evolution and disc evolution. She is taking part in the British Science Festival happening on campus in September.

Click for a short video explaining some of Farzana's research, and details of her event at the British Science Festival.