Dynamically stabilized magnetic skyrmions.
Magnetic skyrmions are topologically non-trivial spin textures that manifest themselves as quasiparticles in ferromagnetic thin films or noncentrosymmetric bulk materials. So far attention has focused on skyrmions stabilized either by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) or by dipolar interaction, where in the latter case the excitations are known as bubble skyrmions. Here we demonstrate the existence of a dynamically stabilized skyrmion, which exists even when dipolar interactions and DMI are absent. We establish how such dynamic skyrmions can be nucleated, sustained and manipulated in an effectively lossless medium under a nanocontact. As quasiparticles, they can be transported between two nanocontacts in a nanowire, even in complete absence of DMI. Conversely, in the presence of DMI, we observe that the dynamical skyrmion experiences strong breathing. All of this points towards a wide range of skyrmion manipulation, which can be studied in a much wider class of materials than considered so far.
York-Nanjing Joint Center for Spintronics and Nano Engineering (YNJC), School of Electronics Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.|Department of Physics, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Y
Y
Zhou
Department of Physics, University of Gothenburg, 412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.
E
E
Iacocca
Department of Physics, University of Gothenburg, 412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.
A A
AA
Awad
Department of Physics, University of Gothenburg, 412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.
R K
RK
Dumas
Department of Physics, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.|Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hang Zhou 310027, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing, China.
F C
FC
Zhang
UCD School of Physics, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland.|Theoretical Physics and Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
H B
HB
Braun
Department of Physics, University of Gothenburg, 412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.|Materials and Nano Physics, School of ICT, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Electrum 229, 164 40 Kista, Sweden.
J
J
Åkerman