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Magnetic whirlpools creep and flow in response to emergent electrodynamics

Swirling magnetic structures move through a material in ways that depend on their interactions with mobile electrons. Fresh insight into how to control this electrodynamic effect could lead to ultracompact magnetic devices.
  1. Yingying Wu

    1. Yingying Wu is in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA.

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In some magnetic materials, the direction of magnetization traces out tiny whirlpool structures known as skyrmions. These robust magnetic textures exist at room temperature, and they can be manipulated with low energy, which makes them promising candidates for computer memory and logic components. The electrons that conduct electricity through a material interact with these skyrmions, inducing emergent electrodynamic effects that can facilitate their detection and that could lead to innovative ways of exploiting these textures. Writing in Nature, Birch et al.1 report electrical resistance measurements revealing that these effects manifest as three distinct dynamic behaviours in a skyrmion-hosting material — offering a route to precise control of these intriguing structures.

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Nature 633, 527-528 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02944-y

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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