2020/09/24 by Shang Gao, H. D. Rosales, F. A. Gómez Albarracín +11
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.str-el #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2716-8
published as Nature 586, 37 (2020) · 14 pages, 11 figures, submitted version with necessary edits
arxiv created 2020/09/24 · arxiv updated 2020/10/05
Magnetic skyrmions are topological solitons with a nanoscale winding spin texture that hold promise for spintronics applications. Until now, skyrmions have been observed in a variety of magnets that exhibit nearly parallel alignment for the neighbouring spins, but theoretically, skyrmions with anti-parallel neighbouring spins are also possible. The latter, antiferromagnetic skyrmions, may allow more flexible control compared to the conventional ferromagnetic skyrmions. Here, by combining neutron scattering and Monte Carlo simulations, we show that a fractional antiferromagnetic skyrmion lattice with an incipient meron character is stabilized in MnSc2S4 through anisotropic couplings. Our work demonstrates that the theoretically proposed antiferromagnetic skyrmions can be stabilized in real materials and represents an important step towards implementing the antiferromagnetic-skyrmion based spintronic devices.