Elliptical Bloch skyrmion chiral twins in an antiskyrmion system

Jagannath Jena, Börge Göbel, Tianping Ma, Vivek Kumar, Rana Saha, Ingrid Mertig, Claudia Felser and Stuart S. P. Parkin ()
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Jagannath Jena: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics
Börge Göbel: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics
Tianping Ma: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics
Vivek Kumar: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids
Rana Saha: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics
Ingrid Mertig: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics
Claudia Felser: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids
Stuart S. P. Parkin: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract 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 D2d 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 D2d materials exceptional.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14925-6

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