Magnetic Skyrmions in Chiral Materials

Magnetic skyrmions are topologically protected spin whirlpools arising in materials lacking inversion symmetry. They emerge when competing exchange interactions and the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction stabilise nanoscale spin textures that behave as quasi-particles. Found in chiral magnets such as B20 compounds and insulating multiferroics, skyrmions can be manipulated by low electrical currents or electric fields, offering promising routes to ultrahigh-density, energy-efficient memory and logic devices. Their stability at and above room temperature, small size (down to tens of nanometres) and robust topological properties have driven efforts to engineer materials with enhanced Curie temperatures, reduced skyrmion diameters and widened stability windows. Techniques range from epitaxial growth of tailored thin films to chemical doping and application of external stimuli such as pressure or optical pulses. Recent advances have elucidated their dynamic modes, real-space topological phase transitions involving emergent monopoles, and non-volatile electric-field control of metastable skyrmion lattices. Integrating these advances with device architectures is a central challenge towards practical helitronic applications.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have demonstrated atomic-layer epitaxy of FeGe films with excess iron that stabilises skyrmions as small as 15 nm at room temperature, confirmed by Lorentz transmission electron microscopy and topological Hall signatures. Investigations in manganese germanide have visualised the real-space phase transition driven by pair annihilation of hedgehog–antihedgehog spin singularities, revealing critical phenomena linked to emergent magnetic monopoles. In a magnetoelectric chiral compound, electric fields were used to nucleate and preserve a metastable skyrmion lattice well below the equilibrium phase boundary, establishing a bistable magnetic state without ongoing field application and pointing to non-volatile electric-field control of skyrmion ordering.

Magnetic Skyrmions in Chiral Materials publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in magnetic skyrmions in chiral materials across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Magnetic skyrmion: A nanoscale, stable whirl of spins with non-trivial topology in a magnetic material.

Chiral magnet: A ferromagnet lacking inversion symmetry, enabling antisymmetric exchange interactions.

Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction: An antisymmetric exchange coupling that stabilises non-collinear spin textures.

Topological Hall effect: An additional Hall voltage arising from electron motion through a skyrmion texture.

Metastable phase: A persistently trapped magnetic configuration that is not the thermodynamic ground state.

Curie temperature: The temperature above which a ferromagnet loses long-range magnetic order.

References

1. An atomically tailored chiral magnet with small skyrmions at room temperature. Communications Physics (2023).
2. Helitronics as a potential building block for classical and unconventional computing. Neuromorphic Computing and Engineering (2023).
3. Critical phenomena of emergent magnetic monopoles in a chiral magnet. Nature Communications (2016).
4. Transition to and from the skyrmion lattice phase by electric fields in a magnetoelectric compound. Nature Communications (2016).
5. Ultrafast optical excitation of magnetic skyrmions. Scientific Reports (2015).
6. Dramatic pressure-driven enhancement of bulk skyrmion stability. Scientific Reports (2016).
7. Local dynamics of topological magnetic defects in the itinerant helimagnet FeGe. Nature Communications (2016).
8. Multiple low-temperature skyrmionic states in a bulk chiral magnet. npj Quantum Materials (2019).