Authors:	Malottki, S. von Dupé, Bertrand Bessarab, Pavel F. Delin, Anna Heinze, Stefan
Title:	Enhanced skyrmion stability due to exchange frustration
Online publication date:	20-Oct-2022
Year of first publication:	2017
Language:	english
Abstract:	Skyrmions are localized, topologically non-trivial spin structures which have raised high hopes for future spintronic applications. A key issue is skyrmion stability with respect to annihilation into the ferromagnetic state. Energy barriers for this collapse have been calculated taking only nearest neighbor exchange interactions into account. Here, we demonstrate that exchange frustration can greatly enhance skyrmion stability. We focus on the prototypical film system Pd/Fe/Ir(111) and use an atomistic spin model parametrized from first-principles calculations. We show that energy barriers and critical fields of skyrmion collapse as well as skyrmion lifetimes are drastically enhanced due to frustrated exchange and that antiskyrmions are metastable. In contrast an effective nearest-neighbor exchange model can only account for equilibrium properties of skyrmions such as their magnetic field dependent profile or the zero temperature phase diagram. Our work shows that frustration of long range exchange interactions – a typical feature in itinerant electron magnets – is a route towards enhanced skyrmion stability even in systems with a ferromagnetic ground state.
DDC:	530 Physik 530 Physics
Institution:	Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Department:	FB 08 Physik, Mathematik u. Informatik
Place:	Mainz
ROR:	https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI:	http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-8115
Version:	Published version
Publication type:	Zeitschriftenaufsatz
License:	CC BY
Information on rights of use:	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Journal:	Scientific reports 7
Pages or article number:	Art. 12299
Publisher:	Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature
Publisher place:	London
Issue date:	2017
ISSN:	2045-2322
Publisher URL:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-12525-x
Publisher DOI:	10.1038/s41598-017-12525-x
Appears in collections:	DFG-OA-Publizieren (2012 - 2017)