Sound waves and solitons are a new way to store information.

Sound waves and solitons are a new way to store information. 

"System in reciprocal and coordinate space. Credit: Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08616-9

A small international team of nanotechnologists, engineers and physicists has developed a way to force laser light into becoming a supersolid. Their paper is published in the journal Nature. The editors at Nature have published a Research Briefing in the same issue summarizing the work. "(Phys.org, Laser light made into a supersolid for the first time)

Identical, impacting laser waves can form solitons. When they pack, wave movement packs against each other. Same way. Coherent acoustic waves or sound waves can form acoustic solitons in matter. Where those waves travel. Coherent acoustic waves that pack vapor in certain points can be the new tools for 3D printer systems. The acoustic system can pack metal or plastic vapor, and it can also be used to push metal layers into a denser form. That makes it harder. 

But let's begin with sound waves. 

Sound waves can store information, just like any other wave movement. Normally, when we store information on disks and tapes. We store it in an electromagnetic form. But there is a possibility to store sound waves as sound waves. But that requires extreme technology. The problem is how to make a sound wave. That can keep its form. The answer is this. The system should have the ability to freeze the medium where the sound wave travels so fast that it can store the wave movement in its form. If the system cannot freeze the wave movement and keep it in its original form. That means the system will not be able to store the sound wave. 

Sound waves or acoustic waves are thing where atoms or molecules hit to each other. When one atom or molecule hits another. That pushes that other atom forward. That makes the acoustic wave. And when the system tries to freeze a sound wave, it tries to freeze that barrier- or contact layer. If the system can do that, it can store soundwaves in their form. 

Another way could be to use “time crystals”. Those time crystals are things that can wobble back and forth forever. Time crystals are so-called quantum perpetual motion machines where low-energy atoms just surround energy between each other. That thing makes it possible to create a sound wave. That travels in those time crystals. That soundwave can remain as long as extremely low-temperature atoms wobble in the time crystal. Maybe that is the new way to store information. 

The problem with the acoustic information is how to make sound waves. That can keep their form. The acoustic wave stores information like all other waves. We can say that a certain decibel level means 1, and below that level is zero, in the binary system. In a quantum system, a wavelength of the oscillation is one state of a qubit. And the decibels are zero and one in those strings or states. In acoustic quantum systems, herz means state. And decibels are zeros and ones. 

A density map of photons in the light supersolid, with the modulation visible as the wavy lines.(Trypogeorgos et al., Nature, 2025)(SitechDaily, World First: Physicists Create a Supersolid Out of Light)

"Comparison of skyrmion and antiskyrmion. a, b Néel-like skyrmion and antiskyrmion schematically shown in c and d mapped onto a sphere. The color code represents the out-of-plane component of the spins via the brightness, with bright (dark) spins pointing up (down), and their rotational sense in radial direction going from inside out changing from red (clockwise) via gray (vanishing rotational sense) to green (counter-clockwise). e, f Cross sections of the spin textures along the four highlighted directions shown in c and d" (Wikipedia, magnetic skyrmion)

Solitons, or solid light, can also be the new step for quantum systems. 

The sound wave that surrounds an object can close its sound inside it. And that makes the object silent. The standing sound wave that travels around an object can also throw the incoming sound over the object. And that denies the echo. The sound skyrmions can also form a structure that traps ions in that thing. A sound skyrmion, or acoustic skyrmion, is the acoustic version of the ring-shaped electromagnetic field. Some people believe that the blaa-lightning is a skyrmion. When the skyrmion rotates around its standing axle, it turns into a so-called “virtual ball”. That effect is similar to the case where somebody pushes a standing coin to rotate very fast. We see that a fast-rotating object is a ball. Because our brains cannot detect that very fast movement. So the standing- and rotating skyrmions can explain ball lightning. 

In some theories, the photon can also be some type of skyrmion. 

Solitons are formed when high-power identical lasers push their beams against each other. That thing means the light can turn solid because laser rays are pushing light waves against each other. That means wave movement can pack to form something that acts like a solid thing. The solitons can transmit data when information is transported to another laser beam. The small difference between energy levels. In the laser beams, let information travel through the system. That is one version where solitons can be used. As we see from the image. Solitons form similar structures to neurons. That gives a wild vision that maybe in the future, solitons can create a structure that forms the light-neurocomputer. That is one version of the use of solitons. 

But then. We can imagine many other uses for solitons and skyrmions. A skyrmion is a ring-shaped electromagnetic field. The soliton can transmit information into skymions. And that makes them ultimate data transmitters. The skyrmion can transmit information wirelessly. But there is also one thing that can make skyrmions more interesting than anybody expected. Skyrmions that surround the object can aim electromagnetic radiation past the object. That thing makes the object invisible. Another thing is that if some object is surrounded by skyrmions, they can form a power field that destroys any physical object that tries to travel through it. 

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/using-sound-to-remember-quantum-information

https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/skyrmion

https://phys.org/news/2025-03-laser-supersolid.html

https://www.sciencealert.com/world-first-physicists-create-a-supersolid-out-of-light

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_skyrmion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyrmion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soliton

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal