Engineering antiferromagnetic skyrmions and antiskyrmions at metallic interfaces

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to create antiferromagnetic skyrmions and antiskyrmions at metallic interfaces by combining properties of antiferromagnets and spin-orbit coupled metals, supported by simulations and effective models.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interfacial engineering mechanism to generate AFM skyrmions and antiskyrmions, with insights from hybrid Monte Carlo simulations and effective spin Hamiltonians.

Findings

AFM skyrmions and antiskyrmions can be realized at interfaces.

Electronic itinerancy influences magnetic texture formation.

Antiskyrmion size can be tuned independently of spin-orbit coupling.

Abstract

We identify a mechanism to convert skyrmions and antiskyrmions into their antiferromagnetic (AFM) counterparts via interfacial engineering. The key idea is to combine properties of an antiferromagnet and a spin-orbit (SO) coupled metal. Utilizing hybrid Monte Carlo (HMC) simulations for a generic microscopic electronic Hamiltonian for the interfacial layers, we explicitly show the emergence of AFM skyrmions and AFM antiskyrmions. We further show that an effective spin Hamiltonian provides a simpler understanding of the results. We discuss the role of electronic itinerancy in determining the nature of magnetic textures, and demonstrate that the mechanism also allows for a tuning of antiskyrmion size without changing the SO coupling.