0000000000800367
AUTHOR
Markus Weißenhofer
Enhanced thermally-activated skyrmion diffusion in synthetic antiferromagnetic systems with tunable effective topological charge
Magnetic skyrmions, topologically-stabilized spin textures that emerge in particular magnetic systems, have attracted attention due to a variety of electromagnetic responses that are governed by the topology. A well-studied effect of topology on the deterministic and drift motion under a nonequilibrium excitation is the so-called skyrmion Hall effect. For stochastic diffusive motion, the effect of topology is expected to have a drastically stronger impact, but the predicted even qualitative impact has not been demonstrated. The required tuning of the topology to achieve zero effective topological charge can be achieved using antiferromagnetic skyrmions. However, the diffusive motion has pre…
Anisotropic skyrmion diffusion controlled by magnetic-field-induced symmetry breaking
The diffusion of particles has wide repercussions, ranging from particle-based soft-matter systems to solid-state systems with particular electronic properties. Recently, in the field of magnetism, the diffusion of magnetic skyrmions, topologically stabilized quasiparticles, has been demonstrated. Here, we show that, by applying a magnetic in-plane field, and therefore, breaking the symmetry of the system, skyrmion diffusion becomes anisotropic, with faster diffusion parallel to the field axis and slower diffusion perpendicular to it. We furthermore show that the absolute value of the applied magnetic in-plane field controls the absolute values of the diffusion coefficients, so that one can…