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Condensed-matter physics

Single skyrmions spotted

Nature volume 465, pages 880–881 (2010)Cite this article

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Skyrmions are a special type of particle that has long been predicted to exist in many fields of physics. Direct images of these structures have now been made in a magnetic material.

Hurricanes are characterized by heavy winds spiralling around the eye of the storm. They can be very stable and travel thousands of miles while changing in shape, velocity, rotation speed and strength. But their main characteristic — the direction of air flow around the storm's eye — remains unchanged. In the realm of quantum-field theory and solid-state physics, stable whirls called skyrmions, which have particle-like properties and bear some resemblance to hurricanes, have long been predicted but have not been seen directly — until now. On page 901 of this issue, Yu et al.1 report the first real-space images of skyrmions in a magnetic material.

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Figure 1: Roaming through a skyrmion.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Christian Pfleiderer is at the Lehrstuhl für Experimentalphysik E21, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany. christian.pfleiderer@frm2.tum.de ,

    Christian Pfleiderer

  2. Achim Rosch is at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Universität zu Köln, D-50937 Köln, Germany. rosch@thp.uni-koeln.de ,

    Achim Rosch

Authors
  1. Christian Pfleiderer
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  2. Achim Rosch
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See also Editorial, page 846.

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Pfleiderer, C., Rosch, A. Single skyrmions spotted. Nature 465, 880–881 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/465880a

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