Voltage-controlled topological spin textures in the monolayer limit

TL;DR

Researchers demonstrated voltage-controlled topological spin textures in monolayer CrI3, enabling new ways to study and manipulate magnetic properties in 2D materials.

Contribution

The study introduces electrically tunable spin-orbit interaction to create and manipulate topological spin textures in monolayer CrI3.

Findings

Electric fields can break inversion symmetry and modulate the band structure in monolayer CrI3.

Voltage-controlled spin-orbit interaction enables the creation of topological spin textures.

The method offers potential for probing quantum phenomena and developing skyrmion-based technologies.

Abstract

The physics of phase transitions in low-dimensional systems has long been a subject of significant research interest. Long-range magnetic order in the strict two-dimensional limit, whose discovery circumvented the Mermin-Wagner theorem, has rapidly emerged as a research focus. However, the demonstration of a non-trivial topological spin textures in two-dimensional limit has remained elusive. Here, we demonstrate the out-of-plane electric field breaks inversion symmetry while simultaneously modulating the electronic band structure, enabling electrically tunable spin-orbit interaction for creation and manipulation of topological spin textures in monolayer CrI3. The realization of ideal two-dimensional topological spin textures may offer not only an experimental testbed for probing the Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless mechanism, but also potential insights into unresolved quantum phenomena including superconductivity and superfluidity. Moreover, voltage-controlled spin-orbit interaction offers a novel pathway to engineer two-dimensional spin textures with tailored symmetries and topologies, while opening avenues for skyrmion-based next-generation information technologies.

The authors observed the electric field-induced generation and manipulation of topological spin textures at the monolayer limit using the topological magneto-optical effect.

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