White Jonathan S, Ukleev Victor, Yu Le, Tokura Yoshinori, Taguchi Yasujiro, Karube Kosuke
Laboratory for Neutron Scattering and Imaging (LNS), PSI Center for Neutron and Muon Sciences, Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), Villigen PSI, CH-5232, Switzerland.
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, Hahn-Meitner-Platz 1, D-14109, Berlin, Germany.
Adv Mater. 2025 May 7:e2501146. doi: 10.1002/adma.202501146.
Chiral cubic Co-Zn-Mn magnets exhibit diverse topological spin textures, including room-temperature skyrmion phases and robust far-from-equilibrium metastable states. Despite recent advances in understanding metastable skyrmions, the interplay between compositional disorder and varying magnetic anisotropy on the stability and decay of metastable textures, particularly near room temperature, remains incompletely understood. In this work, the equilibrium and metastable skyrmion formation in CoZnMn is examined, revealing transformations between distinct metastable spin textures induced by temperature and magnetic field. At room temperature, the decay dynamics of metastable skyrmions exhibits a strong dependence on magnetic anisotropy, showcasing a route towards tailoring relaxation behavior. Furthermore, a nascent double-q spin texture, characterized by two coexisting magnetic modulation vectors q, is identified as a minority phase alongside the conventional triple-q hexagonal skyrmion lattice. This double-q texture can be quenched as a metastable state, suggesting both its topological character, and its role as a potential intermediary of metastable skyrmion decay. These findings provide new insights into the tunability of equilibrium and metastable topological spin textures via chemical composition and magnetic anisotropy, offering strategies for designing materials with customizable and dynamic skyrmion properties for advanced technological applications.
手性立方钴锌锰磁体展现出多样的拓扑自旋纹理，包括室温下的斯格明子相以及稳定的远离平衡亚稳态。尽管近期在理解亚稳态斯格明子方面取得了进展，但成分无序和变化的磁各向异性对亚稳纹理的稳定性和衰减的相互作用，尤其是在室温附近，仍未被完全理解。在这项工作中，研究了钴锌锰中平衡和亚稳态斯格明子的形成，揭示了由温度和磁场诱导的不同亚稳自旋纹理之间的转变。在室温下，亚稳态斯格明子的衰减动力学表现出对磁各向异性的强烈依赖性，展示了一种调节弛豫行为的途径。此外，一种以两个共存的磁调制矢量q为特征的新生双q自旋纹理，被识别为与传统的三q六角斯格明子晶格并存的少数相。这种双q纹理可以作为亚稳态被猝灭，这表明了它的拓扑特性以及它作为亚稳态斯格明子衰减潜在中间态的作用。这些发现为通过化学成分和磁各向异性调节平衡和亚稳态拓扑自旋纹理提供了新的见解，为设计具有可定制和动态斯格明子特性的材料以用于先进技术应用提供了策略。
