Chiral skyrmions in thin magnetic films: new objects for magnetic storage technologies?

TL;DR

This paper develops a micromagnetic theory for chiral skyrmions in thin magnetic films, highlighting their stability, existence conditions, and potential as mobile nanoscale data carriers for magnetic storage.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive micromagnetic model for chiral skyrmions in thin layers, expanding understanding of their stability and applications in data storage.

Findings

Chiral skyrmions are stable in broad magnetic field ranges.

They can exist at zero magnetic field.

Skyrmions are highly mobile and suitable for data storage.

Abstract

Axisymmetric magnetic lines of nanometer sizes (chiral vortices or skyrmions) have been predicted to exist in a large group of noncentrosymmetric crystals more than two decades ago. Recently these magnetic textures have been directly observed in nanolayers of cubic helimagnets and monolayers of magnetic metals. We develop a micromagnetic theory of chiral skyrmions in thin magnetic layers for magnetic materials with intrinsic and induced chirality. Such particle-like and stable micromagnetic objects can exist in broad ranges of applied magnetic fields including zero field. Chiral skyrmions can be used as a new type of highly mobile nanoscale data carriers.