Skyrmions in disordered heterostructures}

TL;DR

This paper explores how weak disorder influences skyrmions in a 2D electron gas near filling factor one, revealing their persistence and behavior under disorder and temperature effects.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the presence and characteristics of skyrmions in disordered quantum Hall systems at filling factors close to unity.

Findings

Skyrmions are present even at filling factor ν=1.

Disorder can strongly squeeze skyrmions.

Temperature affects skyrmion density and size.

Abstract

We have investigated the effect of weak disorder on the ground state of a two dimensional electron gas in the quantum Hall regime at filling factors slightly deviating from unity. The skyrmions and antiskyrmions are found to be present even at filling factor $\nu=1$. They may be strongly squeezed by the disorder. We have studied temperature effect on skyrmion density and size.