Emergence of Transient Domain Wall Skyrmions after Ultrafast Demagnetisation

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that ultrafast laser pulses can induce transient domain wall skyrmions with topological charge, influencing skyrmion populations and nucleation processes in magnetic systems with broken inversion symmetry.

Contribution

It reveals the emergence of transient domain wall skyrmions after ultrafast demagnetisation and their role in skyrmion population dynamics, a novel insight into ultrafast magnetic switching.

Findings

Domain wall skyrmions emerge post-ultrafast laser pulses.

Transient skyrmions influence the final skyrmion count via annihilations.

Single-shot and pulse trains can nucleate skyrmions with different topological states.

Abstract

It is known that ultrafast laser pulses can be used to deterministically switch magnetisation and create skyrmions, however the deterministic creation of a single N\'eel skyrmion after ultrafast demagnetisation remains an open question. Here we show domain wall skyrmions also emerge in systems with broken inversion symmetry after exposure to an ultrafast laser pulse, carrying an integer topological charge. Whilst domain wall skyrmions do not appear in the relaxed state due to quick thermal decay following an Arrhenius law, they play a key role in controlling the final skyrmion population through annihilations with skyrmions of opposite topological charge, with the resultant skyrmion states following a Poisson distribution. Using single-shot linearly polarised laser pulses, as well as a train of circularly polarised laser pulses, we show that when a high degree of disorder is created, the possibility of nucleating a single N\'eel skyrmion is accompanied by the possibility of nucleating a skyrmion with domain wall skyrmion pair, which results in a self-annihilation collapse.