2020/11/02 by Yuuki Yasui, Christopher J. Butler, Nguyen Duy Khanh +8 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Coupling (piping) #Electron #Inductive coupling #Magnet #Magnetic Properties of Alloys #Magnetic moment #Magnetic properties of thin films #Quantum tunnelling #Rare-earth and actinide compounds #Skyrmion #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19751-4
published as Nature Communications 11, 5925 (2020) · 21+7 pages, 4+11 figures, to appear in Nature Communications
arxiv created 2020/11/02 · openalex created_date 2020/11/09 · openalex publication_date 2020/11/23 · arxiv updated 2020/11/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract Magnetic skyrmions were thought to be stabilised only in inversion-symmetry breaking structures, but skyrmion lattices were recently discovered in inversion symmetric Gd-based compounds, spurring questions of the stabilisation mechanism. A natural consequence of a recent theoretical proposal, a coupling between itinerant electrons and localised magnetic moments, is that the skyrmions are amenable to detection using even non-magnetic probes such as spectroscopic-imaging scanning tunnelling microscopy (SI-STM). Here SI-STM observations of GdRu 2 Si 2 reveal patterns in the local density of states that indeed vary with the underlying magnetic structures. These patterns are qualitatively reproduced by model calculations which assume exchange coupling between itinerant electrons and localised moments. These findings provide a clue to understand the skyrmion formation mechanism in GdRu 2 Si 2 .