Fractional antiferromagnetic skyrmion lattice induced by anisotropic couplings

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the stabilization of fractional antiferromagnetic skyrmion lattices in MnSc₂S₄ using neutron scattering and simulations, highlighting their potential for advanced spintronic applications.

Contribution

It provides experimental and theoretical evidence for the existence of antiferromagnetic skyrmions stabilized by anisotropic couplings in a real material.

Findings

Fractional antiferromagnetic skyrmion lattice observed in MnSc₂S₄.

Skyrmions stabilized through anisotropic couplings.

Potential for spintronic device applications.

Abstract

Magnetic skyrmions are topological solitons with a nanoscale winding spin texture that hold promise for spintronics applications. Until now, skyrmions have been observed in a variety of magnets that exhibit nearly parallel alignment for the neighbouring spins, but theoretically, skyrmions with anti-parallel neighbouring spins are also possible. The latter, antiferromagnetic skyrmions, may allow more flexible control compared to the conventional ferromagnetic skyrmions. Here, by combining neutron scattering and Monte Carlo simulations, we show that a fractional antiferromagnetic skyrmion lattice with an incipient meron character is stabilized in MnSc$_2$S$_4$ through anisotropic couplings. Our work demonstrates that the theoretically proposed antiferromagnetic skyrmions can be stabilized in real materials and represents an important step towards implementing the antiferromagnetic-skyrmion based spintronic devices.