Deformation of Topologically-Protected Supercooled Skyrmions in a Thin Plate of Chiral Magnet Co<sub>8</sub>Zn<sub>8</sub>Mn<sub>4</sub>.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 28135106.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b04821.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Magnetic skyrmions in Co<sub>8</sub>Zn<sub>8</sub>Mn<sub>4</sub> thin plates are observed to deform in a metastable state prepared in a magnetic-field-cooling process by way of the thermal-equilibrium skyrmion phase. In cooling, the disk-shape skyrmions change to bar- or L-shaped elongated form, whereas the skyrmion density is nearly conserved. The deformation of the skyrmions in the supercooled metastable phase is observed irrespective of the crystallographic orientation of the thin plate, whereas the elongation direction nearly aligns along the magnetic easy axis. It is proposed that the deformation should be induced by a large increase in magnetic modulation wavenumber when decreasing the temperature, whereas the topological protection of the skyrmions keeps the averaged skyrmion density constant.