Theory of the skyrmion, meron, antiskyrmion, and antimeron in chiral magnets

We find closed-form solution of the Euler equation for a chiral magnet in terms of a skyrmion or a meron depending on the relative strengths of magnetic anisotropy and magnetic field. We show that the relevant length scales for these solutions primarily depend on the strengths of Dzyaloshinskii-Mori...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical Review Research
Main Authors: Sandip Bera, Sudhansu S. Mandal
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society 2019-11-01
Online Access:http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.1.033109
Description
Summary:We find closed-form solution of the Euler equation for a chiral magnet in terms of a skyrmion or a meron depending on the relative strengths of magnetic anisotropy and magnetic field. We show that the relevant length scales for these solutions primarily depend on the strengths of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction through its ratios, respectively, with magnetic field and magnetic anisotropy. We thus unambiguously determine the parameter dependencies on the radius of the topological structures particularly of the skyrmions, showing an excellent agreement with experiments and first-principles studies. An anisotropic Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction suitable for thin films made with C_{nv} symmetric materials is found to stabilize antiskyrmion and antimeron, which are prototypical for D_{2d} symmetric systems, depending on the degree of anisotropy. Based on these solutions, we obtain a phase diagram by comparing the energies of various collinear and noncollinear competing phases.
ISSN:2643-1564