Crystalline phases in chiral ferromagnets: Destabilization of helical order

Abstract

In chiral ferromagnets, weak spin-orbit interactions twist the ferromagnetic order into spirals, leading to helical order. We investigate an extended Ginzburg-Landau theory of such systems where the helical order is destabilized in favor of crystalline phases. These crystalline phases are based on periodic arrangements of double-twist cylinders and are strongly reminiscent of blue phases in liquid crystals. We discuss the relevance of such blue phases for the phase diagram of the chiral ferromagnet MnSi.

6 pages, 5 figures (published version)

References in corpus (3)

• Spontaneous Skyrmion Ground States in Magnetic Metals
• Theory of the helical spin crystal: a candidate for the partially ordered state of MnSi
• Theory of helical spin crystals: phases, textures and properties

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• Complex itinerant ferromagnetism in noncentrosymmetric Cr11Ge19
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• Topical Review on Skyrmions and Hall Transport
• Evolution of Helimagnetic Correlations when approaching the Quantum Critical Point of Mn${}_{1-x}$Fe${}_x$Si
• A general model of MnSi-like spiral magnets