Electronic route to stabilize nanoscale spin textures in itinerant frustrated magnets

TL;DR

This paper discovers and characterizes nanoscale spin textures in frustrated itinerant magnets, revealing their stabilization mechanisms and potential for manipulation, with implications for data storage technologies.

Contribution

It introduces a new framework for stabilizing nanoscale spin textures in frustrated spin-charge coupled systems using electronic and charge modulations.

Findings

Identification of planar ferromagnetic and non-coplanar spin textures

Localization of electronic wavefunctions linked to these textures

Potential for manipulation via external electric and magnetic fields

Abstract

We unveil novel spin textures in an itinerant fermion model on a frustrated triangular lattice in the limit of low electronic density. Using hybrid Monte Carlo simulations on finite clusters we identify two type of nanoscale spin textures in the background of 120 degree order : (i) a planar ferromagnetic cluster, and (ii) and a non-coplanar cluster with spins oriented perpendicular to the 120 degree plane. Both these textures lead to localization of the electronic wavefunctions and are in-turn stabilized by the concomitant charge modulations. The non-coplanar spin texture is accompanied by an unusual scalar chirality pattern. A well defined electric charge and magnetic moment associated with these textures allow for their easy manipulation by external electric and magnetic fields - a desirable feature for data storage. We identify a localization-delocalization behavior for electronic wavefunctions which is unique to frustrated magnets, and propose a general framework for stabilizing similar spin textures in spin-charge coupled systems.