Scaling, rotation, and channeling behavior of helical and skyrmion spin textures in thin films of Te-doped Cu₂OSeO₃.

Abstract

Topologically nontrivial spin textures such as vortices, skyrmions, and monopoles are promising candidates as information carriers for future quantum information science. Their controlled manipulation including creation and annihilation remains an important challenge toward practical applications and further exploration of their emergent phenomena. Here, we report controlled evolution of the helical and skyrmion phases in thin films of multiferroic Te-doped Cu₂OSeO₃ as a function of material thickness, dopant, temperature, and magnetic field using in situ Lorentz phase microscopy. We report two previously unknown phenomena in chiral spin textures in multiferroic Cu₂OSeO₃: anisotropic scaling and channeling with a fixed-Q state. The skyrmion channeling effectively suppresses the recently reported second skyrmion phase formation at low temperature. Our study provides a viable way toward controlled manipulation of skyrmion lattices, envisaging chirality-controlled skyrmion flow circuits and enabling precise measurement of emergent electromagnetic induction and topological Hall effects in skyrmion lattices.