Fig. 3: Meron and antimeron collision.
From: Properties and dynamics of meron topological spin textures in the two-dimensional magnet CrCl3
a–c, d–f Snapshots of the vortex and antivortex dynamics with antiparallel and parallel core polarization, respectively, before (a, d), during (b, e), and after (c, f) the collisions at zero field and 0 K. The dark and bright backgrounds indicate a more out-of-plane magnetization at the core of the vortex and antivortex. The big arrows in a, b, d, and e indicate the average behavior of the in-plane spin components in the perimeter. In all considered topological spin textures, similar collision scenarios are observed, which take roughly between 0.57 ns (a–c) and 0.17 ns (d–f) to occur. Scale bar is 4 nm. g–j Macroscale magnetic domains (blue and red) at different times showing the evolution of the merons and antimerons (small circles in green and orange) at the boundary between magnetic domains. The Sy component (color map) of the magnetization is utilized to show the magnetic domain structure whereas Sz for the vortex and antivortex textures. The white boundary near where the merons and antimerons are localized have Sy = 0 and Sx = 0 (Supplementary Fig. S6). Sz reaches its maximum magnitude at the center of the spin textures (inset color map in g). The dynamics of the domains is directly coupled to the motion of the merons and antimerons, and vice-versa. At sufficient longer times, the entire system results in a mono-domain throughout the surface.
