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Equilibrium Skyrmion Lattice Ground State in a Polar Easy-plane Magnet

Type of publication Peer-reviewed
Publikationsform Original article (peer-reviewed)
Author Bordács S., Butykai A., Szigeti B. G., White J. S., Cubitt R., Leonov A. O., Widmann S., Ehlers D., von Nidda H.-A. Krug, Tsurkan V., Loidl A., Kézsmárki I.,
Project Exploration of emerging magnetoelectric coupling effects in new materials
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Original article (peer-reviewed)

Journal Scientific Reports
Volume (Issue) 7(1)
Page(s) 7584 - 7584
Title of proceedings Scientific Reports
DOI 10.1038/s41598-017-07996-x

Open Access

URL http://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-07996-x
Type of Open Access Publisher (Gold Open Access)

Abstract

The skyrmion lattice state (SkL), a crystal built of mesoscopic spin vortices, gains its stability via thermal fluctuations in all bulk skyrmion host materials known to date. Therefore, its existence is limited to a narrow temperature region below the paramagnetic state. This stability range can drastically increase in systems with restricted geometries, such as thin films, interfaces and nanowires. Thermal quenching can also promote the SkL as a metastable state over extended temperature ranges. Here, we demonstrate more generally that a proper choice of material parameters alone guarantees the thermodynamic stability of the SkL over the full temperature range below the paramagnetic state down to zero kelvin. We found that GaV4Se8, a polar magnet with easy-plane anisotropy, hosts a robust Néel-type SkL even in its ground state. Our supporting theory confirms that polar magnets with weak uniaxial anisotropy are ideal candidates to realize SkLs with wide stability ranges.
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