Discovery of stable skyrmionic state in ferroelectric nanocomposites

Abstract

Non-coplanar swirling field textures, or skyrmions, are now widely recognized as objects of both fundamental interest and technological relevance. So far, skyrmions were amply investigated in magnets, where due to the presence of chiral interactions, these topological objects were found to be intrinsically stabilized. Ferroelectrics on the other hand, lacking such chiral interactions, were somewhat left aside in this quest. Here we demonstrate, via the use of a first-principles-based framework, that skyrmionic configuration of polarization can be extrinsically stabilized in ferroelectric nanocomposites. The interplay between the considered confined geometry and the dipolar interaction underlying the ferroelectric phase instability induces skyrmionic configurations. The topological structure of the obtained electrical skyrmion can be mapped onto the topology of domain-wall junctions. Furthermore, the stabilized electrical skyrmion can be as small as a few nanometers, thus revealing prospective skyrmion-based applications of ferroelectric nanocomposites.

Thermally stable magnetic skyrmions in multilayer synthetic antiferromagnetic racetracks

“…Recently, experiments have revealed the existence of both Néel-type and Bloch-type skyrmions in thin films as well as bulk materials [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. The spin configuration of a skyrmion is topologically protected, which is stable as long as it does not overlap tilted spins on the sample edge or shrink to the lattice scale.…”

Synthesizing skyrmion bound pairs in Fe-Gd thin films

“…Fifty years since Skyrme described baryons as topological defects of continuous fields 1 , excited "skyrmion" states have been found in condensed matter systems such as liquid crystals 2 , quantum Hall systems 3 , ferroelectrics 4 , and magnetic materials 5 . Similar excitations were theoretically explored in two-dimensional magnetic systems, which evade ferromagnetic transitions by developing spatially inhomogeneous topological spin defects.…”

Nonlinear Ultrafast Spin Scattering in the Skyrmion Phase of Cu2OSeO3

“…The excitation of the skyrmion order parameter is nonlinear in the magnetic excitation resulting from scattering during electron-hole recombination, indicating different dominant scattering processes in the conical and skyrmion phases. Topologically protected states in a wide variety of condensed matter systems are of interest due to both new emergent physics and the potential in device applications [1][2][3][4][5]. One example of these topological states is the skyrmion, which is a particle-like excitation on a ferromagnetic background that forms as a twisted knot of spins in a regular hexagonal lattice [6].…”