Elliptical Bloch skyrmion chiral twins in an antiskyrmion system

Skyrmions and antiskyrmions are distinct topological chiral spin textures that have been observed in various material systems depending on the symmetry of the crystal structure. Here we show, using Lorentz transmission electron microscopy, that arrays of skyrmions can be stabilized in a tetragonal i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Nature communications 2020-02, Vol.11 (1), p.1115-1115, Article 1115
Main Authors:	Jena, Jagannath, Göbel, Börge, Ma, Tianping, Kumar, Vivek, Saha, Rana, Mertig, Ingrid, Felser, Claudia, Parkin, Stuart S P
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Chirality Crystal structure Dipole interactions Hypothetical particles Particle theory Symmetry Topology Transmission electron microscopy
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Skyrmions and antiskyrmions are distinct topological chiral spin textures that have been observed in various material systems depending on the symmetry of the crystal structure. Here we show, using Lorentz transmission electron microscopy, that arrays of skyrmions can be stabilized in a tetragonal inverse Heusler with D symmetry whose Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) otherwise supports antiskyrmions. These skyrmions can be distinguished from those previously found in several B20 systems which have only one chirality and are circular in shape. We find Bloch-type elliptical skyrmions with opposite chiralities whose major axis is oriented along two specific crystal directions: [010] and [100]. These structures are metastable over a wide temperature range and we show that they are stabilized by long-range dipole-dipole interactions. The possibility of forming two distinct chiral spin textures with opposite topological charges of ±1 in one material makes the family of D materials exceptional.
ISSN:	2041-1723 2041-1723