B20-type compounds, such as MnSi and FeGe, host helimagnetic and skyrmion phases at the mesoscale, which are canonically explained by the combination of ferromagnetic isotropic interactions with weaker chiral Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya ones. Mysteriously, MnGe evades this paradigm as it displays a noncollinear magnetic state at a much shorter nanometer scale. Here we show that the length scale and volume-dependent magnetic properties of MnGe stem from purely isotropic exchange interactions, generally obtained in the paramagnetic state. Our approach is validated by comparing MnGe with the canonical B20-helimagnet FeGe. The free energy of MnGe is calculated, from which we show how triple-q magnetic states can stabilize by adding higher-order interactions.
Download