  Scattering media, being ubiquitous in nature and critically important for
assessments (e.g., biological tissues), are often considered as nuisance in
optics. Here we show that it is not always the case and scattering media could
be essential in providing elements of topological photonics. We demonstrate
that topological darkness can be realised in the presence of scattering media
due to the transverse nature of electromagnetic waves and the hairy ball
theorem. We describe realizations of topological darkness in a scattering
medium comprising composite gold nanostructures produced by a low-cost
technique of laser structuring of thin metal films. Our results can be useful
for a variety of tasks, including topological nanophotonics, optical label-free
biosensing, and biomedical photonics.
