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Register a new userA generic theory of skyrmion crystal formation
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A generic theory of skyrmion crystal (SkX) formation in chiral magnetic films is presented. We numerically demonstrate that a chiral film can have many metastable states with an arbitrary number of skyrmions up to a maximal value. A perpendicular magnetic field plays a crucial role in SkX formation. The energy of a film increases monotonically with skyrmion number at zero field while the film with $Q_m$ skyrmions has the lowest energy in a magnetic field. $Q_m$ first increases with the magnetic field up to an optimal value and then decreases with the field. Outside of a field window, helical states of low skyrmion number densities are thermal equilibrium phases while an SkX is metastable. Within the field window, SkXs are the thermal equilibrium states below the Curie temperature. However, the time to reach the thermal equilibrium SkX states from a helical state would be too long at a low temperature. This causes a widely spread false belief that SkXs are metastable and helical states are thermal equilibrium phase at low temperature and at the optimal field. Our findings explain well the critical role of a field in SkX formation and fascinating thermodynamic behaviours of helical states and SkXs. Our theory opens a new avenue for SkX manipulation and skyrmion-based applications.
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We consider a magnetic skyrmion crystal formed at the surface of a topological insulator. Incorporating the exchange interaction between the helical Dirac surface states and the periodic Neel or Bloch skyrmion texture, we obtain the resulting electronic band structures. We discuss the properties of the reconstructed skyrmion bands, namely the impact of symmetries on the energies and Berry curvature. We find substantive qualitative differences between the Neel and Bloch cases, with the latter generically permitting a low-energy tight-binding representation whose parameters are tightly constrained by symmetries. We explicitly construct the associated Wannier orbitals, which resemble the ring-like chiral bound states of helical Dirac fermions coupled to a single skyrmion in a ferromagnetic background. We construct a two-band tight-binding model with complex nearest-neighbor hoppings which captures the salient topological features of the low-energy bands. Our results are relevant to magnetic topological insulators (TIs), as well as to TI-magnetic thin film heterostructures, in which skyrmion crystals may be stabilized.
Real-space topological magnetic structures such as skyrmions and merons are promising candidates for information storage and transport. However, the microscopic mechanisms that control their formation and evolution are still not clear. Here, using in-situ Lorentz transmission electron microscopy, we demonstrate that skyrmion crystals (SkXs) can nucleate, grow, and evolve from the conical phase in the same ways that real nanocrystals form from vapors or solutions. More intriguingly, individual skyrmions can also reproduce by division in a mitosis-like process that allows them to annihilate SkX lattice imperfections, which is not available to crystals made of mass-conserving particles. Combined string method and micromagnetic calculations show that competition between repulsive and attractive interactions between skyrmions governs particle-like SkX growth, but non-conservative SkX growth appears to be defect-mediated. Our results provide insights towards manipulating magnetic topological states by applying established crystal growth theory, adapted to account for the new process of skyrmion mitosis.
We study theoretically the transport properties of a three-dimensional spin texture made from three orthogonal helices, which is essentially a lattice of monopole-antimonopole pairs connected by Skyrmion strings. This spin structure is proposed for MnGe based on the neutron scattering experiment as well as the Lorentz transmission electron microscopy observation. Equipped with a sophisticated spectral analysis method, we adopt finite temperature Greens function technique to calculate the longitudinal dc electric transport in such system. We consider conduction electrons interacting with spin waves of the topologically nontrivial spin texture, wherein fluctuations of monopolar emergent magnetic field enter. We study in detail the behavior of electric resistivity under the influence of temperature, external magnetic field and a characteristic monopole motion, especially a novel magnetoresistivity effect describing the latest experimental observations in MnGe, wherein a topological phase transition signifying strong correlation is identified.
We study the spin waves of the triangular skyrmion crystal that emerges in a two dimensional spin lattice model as a result of the competition between Heisenberg exchange, Dzyalonshinkii-Moriya interactions, Zeeman coupling and uniaxial anisotropy. The calculated spin wave bands have a finite Berry curvature that, in some cases, leads to non-zero Chern numbers, making this system topologically distinct from conventional magnonic systems. We compute the edge spin-waves, expected from the bulk-boundary correspondence principle, and show that they are chiral, which makes them immune to elastic backscattering. Our results illustrate how topological phases can occur in self-generated emergent superlattices at the mesoscale.
Thermal collapse of an isolated skyrmion on a two-dimensional spin lattice has been investigated. The method is based upon solution of the system of stochastic Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equations for up $10^4$ spins. Recently developed pulse-noise algorithm has been used for the stochastic component of the equations. The collapse rate follows the Arrhenius law. Analytical formulas derived within a continuous spin-field model support numerically-obtained values of the energy barrier and the pre-exponential factor, and their dependence on the magnetic field. Our findings agree with experiments, as well as with recent numerical results obtained by other methods.
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