Extended elliptic skyrmion gratings in epitaxial MnSi thin films

Abstract

A detailed investigation of the magnetization processes in epitaxial MnSi thin film reveals the existence of elliptically distorted skyrmion strings that lie in the plane of the film. We provide proof that the uniaxial anisotropy stabilizes this state over extended regions of the magnetic phase diagram. Theoretical analysis of an observed cascade of first-order phase transitions is based on rig- orous numerical calculations of competing chiral modulations, which shows the existence of helicoids, elliptic skyrmions, and cone phases.

References in corpus (2)

• Spontaneous Skyrmion Ground States in Magnetic Metals
• Magnetic phase diagram of MnSi inferred from magnetization and ac susceptibility

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Robust formation of skyrmions and topological Hall effect in epitaxial thin films of MnSi
• Three-dimensional skyrmion states in thin films of cubic helimagnets
• Surface twist instabilities and skyrmion states in chiral ferromagnets
• Electrical Probing of Field-Driven Cascading Quantized Transitions of Skyrmion Cluster States in MnSi Nanowires
• Neutron study of in-plane skyrmions in MnSi thin films
• Strain in epitaxial MnSi films on Si(111) in the thick film limit studied by polarization-dependent extended x-ray absorption fine structure
• Liquid crystal Skyrmions can swim