Berlin 2018 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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KFM: Fachverband Kristalline Festkörper und deren Mikrostruktur
KFM 17: Skyrmions III (joint session MA/TT/KFM)
KFM 17.13: Vortrag
Mittwoch, 14. März 2018, 18:00–18:15, EB 301
Skyrmion-Lattice Collapse and Defect-Induced Melting in Chiral Magnetic Films — •Leonardo Pierobon1, Christoforos Moutafis2, Michalis Charilaou1, and Jörg Löffler1 — 1Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology, Department of Materials, ETH Zurich, Switzerland — 2School of Computer Science, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Complex spin textures arise in nanostructured magnets due to competing interactions, primarily the Heisenberg exchange and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), which promote spin collinearity and canting, respectively. Upon rotational-symmetry breaking, particle-like objects with non-trivial spin configurations, i.e., skyrmions, can be created. The winding of skyrmions bestows a topological protection on the system, and the transition to the topologically trivial ferromagnetic state requires a phase transition. Here, we systematically compare isotropic and anisotropic DMI systems by means of high-resolution numerical simulations. We show that in perfect systems skyrmion lattices can be inverted in a field-induced first-order phase transition, whereas the existence of even a single defect replaces the inversion with a second-order phase transition following a defect-induced lattice melting process. This radical qualitative change signifies the importance of employing such an analysis for all realistic systems in order to correctly interpret experimental data. Our results shed light on fundamental processes behind magnetic phase transitions, and pave the way for their experimental realization in technologically relevant multilayer materials.