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Metastable skyrmions

Beat the heat

Nature Physics volume 12, pages 25–26 (2016)Cite this article

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Magnetic skyrmion lattices can be stabilized outside the narrow region where they are thermodynamically favoured by exploiting their topological protection.

In certain ferromagnetic materials that lack a centre of inversion symmetry in the crystal structure, under suitable temperatures and magnetic fields, electron spins can swirl to form magnetic vortices known as skyrmions1. These nanosized vortices can be manipulated with small electric currents via spin-transfer torque2,3,4, enabling ultrahigh information storage density and ultralow energy consumption. These characteristics make them promising candidates for alternative information carriers in racetrack memory devices5. But the restricted conditions under which they form severely limit their use for practical applications. Writing in Nature Physics, Hiroshi Oike and colleagues have demonstrated an electrical method to access long-lived metastable skyrmion states beyond their thermodynamic stability limits6.

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Figure 1: Metastability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Matthew J. Stolt and Song Jin are in the Department of Chemistry, Dong Liang, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1101 University Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA,

    Dong Liang, Matthew J. Stolt & Song Jin

Authors
  1. Dong Liang
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  2. Matthew J. Stolt
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  3. Song Jin
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Correspondence to Song Jin.

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Liang, D., Stolt, M. & Jin, S. Beat the heat. Nature Phys 12, 25–26 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3547

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