Generation and annihilation of skyrmions and antiskyrmions in magnetic heterostructures

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to controllably generate and annihilate skyrmions and antiskyrmions in magnetic heterostructures using micromagnetic simulations, enabling potential advances in skyrmionic device technology.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to stabilize and manipulate skyrmions and antiskyrmions via magnetic vortices in heterostructures, with controlled creation and annihilation mechanisms.

Findings

Reproducible stabilization of skyrmion lattices using magnetic vortices.

Controlled annihilation of skyrmions with short magnetic field pulses.

Dependence of skyrmion stability on vortex polarization and chirality.

Abstract

We demonstrate the controlled generation and annihilation of (anti)skyrmions with tunable chirality in magnetic heterostructures by means of micromagnetic simulations. By making use of magnetic (anti)vortices in patterned ferromagnetic layer, we stabilize full lattices of (anti)skyrmions in an underlying skyrmionic thin film in a reproducible manner. The stability of the (anti)skyrmion depends on the polarization of the (anti)vortex, whereas their chirality is given by those of the (anti)vortices. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the core coupling between the (anti)vortices and (anti)skyrmions allows to annihilate the spin-objects in a controlled fashion by applying short pulses of in-plane external magnetic fields, representing a new key paradigm in skyrmionic devices.