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Elusive spin textures discovered

Magnetic materials can host a range of structures called spin textures. Two such textures — a meron and an antimeron — have been observed experimentally for the first time, in a material known as a chiral magnet.
  1. Seonghoon Woo

    1. Seonghoon Woo is at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA.

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Magnetic moments (spins) in magnetic materials can form various structures known as spin textures. In most cases, spins of neighbouring atoms tend to align parallel or antiparallel to each other, resulting in ferromagnets or antiferromagnets, respectively. However, in some materials called chiral magnets that have unusual physical interactions between spins owing to a peculiar crystalline or multilayer structure, spins align in an intricate fashion: a topological spin texture. On page 95, Yu et al.1 report the first experimental evidence for two such textures, and observe transitions between textures that could have applications in spin-based electronics (spintronics).

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Nature 564, 43-44 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07561-0

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