No Arabic abstract
Skyrmions are localized solitonic spin textures with protected topology, which are promising as information carriers in ultra-dense and energy-efficient logic and memory devices. Recently, magnetic skyrmions have been observed in magnetic thin films, and are stabilized by the extrinsic interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) and/or external magnetic fields. The specific effects in magnetic monolayer materials have not been thoroughly studied. Here, we investigate the intrinsic magnetic skyrmions in a family of monolayer Janus van der Waals magnets, MnSTe, MnSeTe, VSeTe, and MnSSe, by the first-principles calculations combined with the micromagnetic simulations. The monolayer Janus MnSTe, MnSeTe, and VSeTe with out-of-plane geometric asymmetry and strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC) have a large intrinsic DMI, which could stabilize a sub-50 nm intrinsic skyrmions in monolayer MnSTe and MnSeTe at zero magnetic field. While monolayer VSeTe with in-plane easy axis forms magnetic domain rather than skyrmions. Moreover, the size and shape of skyrmions can be tuned by an external magnetic field. Therefore, our work motivates a new vista for seeking intrinsic skyrmions in atomic-scale magnets.
We study the quantum propagation of a Skyrmion in chiral magnetic insulators by generalizing the micromagnetic equations of motion to a finite-temperature path integral formalism, using field theoretic tools. Promoting the center of the Skyrmion to a dynamic quantity, the fluctuations around the Skyrmionic configuration give rise to a time-dependent damping of the Skyrmion motion. From the frequency dependence of the damping kernel, we are able to identify the Skyrmion mass, thus providing a microscopic description of the kinematic properties of Skyrmions. When defects are present or a magnetic trap is applied, the Skyrmion mass acquires a finite value proportional to the effective spin, even at vanishingly small temperature. We demonstrate that a Skyrmion in a confined geometry provided by a magnetic trap behaves as a massive particle owing to its quasi-one-dimensional confinement. An additional quantum mass term is predicted, independent of the effective spin, with an explicit temperature dependence which remains finite even at zero temperature.
A stable skyrmion, representing the smallest realizable magnetic texture, could be an ideal element for ultra-dense magnetic memories. Here, we review recent progress in the field of skyrmionics, which is concerned with studies of tiny whirls of magnetic configurations for novel memory and logic applications, with a particular emphasis on antiskyrmions. Magnetic antiskyrmions represent analogs of skyrmions with opposite topological charge. Just like skyrmions, antiskyrmions can be stabilized by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, as has been demonstrated in a recent experiment. Here, we emphasize differences between skyrmions and antiskyrmions, e.g., in the context of the topological Hall effect, skyrmion Hall effect, as well as nucleation and stability. Recent progress suggests that anitskyrmions can be potentially useful for many device applications. Antiskyrmions offer advantages over skyrmions as they can be driven without the Hall-like motion, offer increased stability due to dipolar interactions, and can be realized above room temperature.
We study the dynamics of a skyrmion in a magnetic insulating nanowire in the presence of time-dependent oscillating magnetic field gradients. These ac fields act as a net driving force on the skyrmion via its own intrinsic magnetic excitations. In a microscopic quantum field theory approach we include the unavoidable coupling of the external field to the magnons, which gives rise to time-dependent dissipation for the skyrmion. We demonstrate that the magnetic ac field induces a super-Ohmic to Ohmic crossover behavior for the skyrmion dissipation kernels with time-dependent Ohmic terms. The ac driving of the magnon bath at resonance results in a unidirectional helical propagation of the skyrmion in addition to the otherwise periodic bounded motion.
The monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides are an emergent semiconductor platform exhibiting rich excitonic physics with coupled spin-valley degree of freedom and optical addressability. Here, we report a new series of low energy excitonic emission lines in the photoluminescence spectrum of ultraclean monolayer WSe2. These excitonic satellites are composed of three major peaks with energy separations matching known phonons, and appear only with electron doping. They possess homogenous spatial and spectral distribution, strong power saturation, and anomalously long population (> 6 ${mu}$s) and polarization lifetimes (> 100 ns). Resonant excitation of the free inter- and intra-valley bright trions leads to opposite optical orientation of the satellites, while excitation of the free dark trion resonance suppresses the satellites photoluminescence. Defect-controlled crystal synthesis and scanning tunneling microscopy measurements provide corroboration that these features are dark excitons bound to dilute donors, along with associated phonon replicas. Our work opens opportunities to engineer homogenous single emitters and explore collective quantum optical phenomena using intrinsic donor-bound excitons in ultraclean 2D semiconductors.
Orbital Hall effect (OHE) is the phenomenon of transverse flow of orbital moment in presence of an applied electric field. Solids with broken inversion symmetry are expected to exhibit a strong OHE due to the presence of an intrinsic orbital moment at individual momentum points in the Brillouin zone, which in presence of an applied electric field, flows in different directions causing a net orbital Hall current. Here we provide a comprehensive understanding of the effect and its tunability in the monolayer 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). Both metallic and insulating TMDCs are investigated from full density-functional calculations, effective $d$-band tight-binding models, as well as a minimal four-band model for the valley points that captures the key physics of the system. For the tuning of the OHE, we examine the role of hole doping as well as the change in the band parameters, which, e. g., can be controlled by strain. We demonstrate that the OHE is a more fundamental effect than the spin Hall effect (SHE), with the momentum-space orbital moments inducing a spin moment in the presence of the spin-orbit coupling, leading to the SHE. The physics of the OHE, described here, is relevant for 2D materials with broken inversion symmetry in general, even beyond the TMDCs, providing a broad platform for future research.