Chiral skyrmion auto-oscillations in a ferromagnet under spin transfer torque

Abstract

A skyrmion can be stabilized in a nanodisc geometry in a ferromagnetic material with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction. We apply spin torque uniform in space and time and observe numerically that the skyrmion is set in steady rotational motion around a point off the nanodisc center. We give a theoretical description of the emerging auto-oscillation dynamics based on the coupling of the rotational motion to the breathing mode of the skyrmion and to the associated oscillations of the in-plane magnetization. The analysis shows that the achievement of auto-oscillations in this simple set-up is due to the chiral symmetry breaking. Thus, we argue that the system is turned into a spin-torque oscillator due to the chiral DM interaction.