Stability boundaries of the skyrmion phase in non-centrosymmetric ferromagnets with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the stability boundaries of skyrmion lattices in non-centrosymmetric ferromagnets with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, showing how temperature and dipole interactions influence their energetic favorability over conical helix configurations.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework considering dipole interactions and fluctuations in magnetization magnitude to determine skyrmion stability boundaries.

Findings

Skyrmion lattice becomes energetically favorable over conical helix at higher temperatures.

Dipole interactions do not qualitatively alter the stability boundaries.

Fluctuations in magnetization magnitude influence skyrmion stability in a specific field range.

Abstract

Stability boundaries of the skyrmion lattice in non-centrosymmetric bulk ferromagnets with the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in external magnetic field are discussed. We compare the classical energies of the spin configuration of the conical helix and skyrmion lattice within the framework of the stereographic projection approach. It is well known that at low temperatures the skyrmion lattice loses energetically to the conical helix in the entire range of fields, $0 < H < H_{c2}$, where $H_{c2}$ is the transition field to the polarized collinear phase, and $g\mu_B H_{c2} \ll T_c$. We show that taking into account the dipole interaction does not qualitatively change the situation. However, the possibility of fluctuations in the absolute value of the equilibrium local magnetization in the Ginzburg-Landau functional leads, with increasing temperature, $T$, to the skyrmion lattice becoming energetically more favorable than the conical helix in a certain range of fields. We show that it occurs already in the first order of small parameter, $\propto g\mu_B H_{c2}/|T-T_c|$, at the level of mean field theory.