Magnetic skyrmion lattices in a novel two-dimensional twisted bilayer magnet

TL;DR

This paper models magnetic skyrmion lattices in twisted bilayer CrI3, revealing how twist angle influences magnetic order and enabling potential applications in memory and spin wave devices.

Contribution

It introduces a first-principles based neural network approach to accurately predict interlayer exchange interactions in twisted bilayer magnets.

Findings

Disorderly FM-AFM domains at small twist angles explained by the model.

Orderly skyrmion lattices predicted at large twist angles.

Potential applications in memory devices and spin wave generation.

Abstract

Magnetic skyrmions are topologically protected spin swirling vertices, which are promising in device applications due to their particle-like nature and excellent controlability. Magnetic skyrmions have been extensively studied in a variety of materials and were proposed to exist in the extreme two-dimensional limit, i.e., in twisted bilayer CrI$_3$ (TBCI). Unfortunately, the magnetic states of TBCIs with small twist angles are disorderly distributed ferromagnetic (FM) and antiferromagnetic (AFM) domains in recent experiments, and thus the method to get rid of disorders in TBCIs is highly desirable. Here we use intralayer exchange interactions up to the third nearest neighbors without empirical parameters and very accurate interlayer exchange interactions to study the magnetic states of TBCIs. We propose the functions of interlayer exchange interactions obtained using first-principles calculations and stored in symmetry-adapted artificial neural networks. Based on them, the subsequent Landau-Lifshitz-Gillbert equation calculations explain the disorderly distributed FM-AFM domains in TBCIs with small twist angles and predict the orderly distributed skyrmions in TBCIs with large twist angles. This novel twisted two-dimensional bilayer magnet can be used to design memory devices, monochromatic spin wave generators and many kinds of skyrmion lattices.