Advances in the Physics of Magnetic Skyrmions and Perspective for Technology

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent progress in understanding magnetic skyrmions, their stabilization at room temperature, and their potential applications in information technology, emphasizing experimental advances towards device prototypes.

Contribution

It summarizes recent experimental developments in stabilizing and manipulating skyrmions at room temperature for technological applications.

Findings

Skyrmions can be stabilized above room temperature in thin films.

Skyrmions can be manipulated by electric current.

Progress towards device prototypes has been achieved.

Abstract

Magnetic skyrmions are small swirling topological defects in the magnetization texture stabilized by the protection due to their topology. In most cases they are induced by chiral interactions between atomic spins existing in non-centrosymmetric magnetic compounds or in thin films in which inversion symmetry is broken by the presence of an interface. The skyrmions can be extremely small with diameters in the nanometer range and, importantly, they behave as particles that can be moved, created or annihilated, making them suitable for abacus-type applications in information storage, logic or neuro-inspired technologies. Up to the last years skyrmions were observed only at low temperature (and in most cases under large applied fields) but important efforts of research has been recently devoted to find thin film and multilayered structures in which skyrmions are stabilized above room temperature and manipulated by current. This article focuses on these recent advances on the route to devices prototypes.