Single Chiral Skyrmions in Ultrathin Magnetic Films

Materials (Basel). 2018 Nov 11;11(11):2238. doi: 10.3390/ma11112238.

Abstract

The stability and sizes of chiral skyrmions in ultrathin magnetic films are calculated accounting for the isotropic exchange, Dzyaloshinskii⁻Moriya exchange interaction (DMI), and out-of-plane magnetic anisotropy within micromagnetic approach. Bloch skyrmions in ultrathin magnetic films with B20 cubic crystal structure (MnSi, FeGe) and Neel skyrmions in ultrathin films and multilayers Co/X (X = Ir, Pd, Pt) are considered. The generalized DeBonte ansatz is used to describe the inhomogeneous skyrmion magnetization. The single skyrmion metastability/instability area, skyrmion radius, and skyrmion width are found analytically as a function of DMI strength d . It is shown that the single chiral skyrmions are metastable in infinite magnetic films below a critical value of DMI d c , and do not exist at d > d c . The calculated skyrmion radius increases as d increases and diverges at d → d c - 0 , whereas the skyrmion width increases monotonically as d increases up to d c without any singularities. The calculated skyrmion width is essentially smaller than the one calculated within the generalized domain wall model.

Keywords: magnetic skyrmion; micromagnetism; ultrathin film.