TY  - JOUR
AU  - Milde, P.
AU  - Kohler, D.
AU  - Seidel, J.
AU  - Eng, L. M.
AU  - Bauer, A.
AU  - Chacon, A.
AU  - Kindervater, J.
AU  - Muhlbauer, S.
AU  - Pfleiderer, C.
AU  - Buhrandt, S.
AU  - Schutte, C.
AU  - Rosch, A.
TI  - Unwinding of a Skyrmion Lattice by Magnetic Monopoles
JO  - Science
VL  - 340
IS  - 6136
SN  - 1095-9203
CY  - Washington, DC [u.a.]
PB  - American Association for the Advancement of Science64196
M1  - FZJ-2015-03018
SP  - 1076 - 1080
PY  - 2013
AB  - Skyrmion crystals are regular arrangements of magnetic whirls that exist in a wide range of chiral magnets. Because of their topology, they cannot be created or destroyed by smooth rearrangements of the direction of the local magnetization. Using magnetic force microscopy, we tracked the destruction of the skyrmion lattice on the surface of a bulk crystal of Fe1−xCoxSi (x = 0.5). Our study revealed that skyrmions vanish by a coalescence, forming elongated structures. Numerical simulations showed that changes of topology are controlled by singular magnetic point defects. They can be viewed as quantized magnetic monopoles and antimonopoles, which provide sources and sinks of one flux quantum of emergent magnetic flux, respectively. 
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000319664500039
C6  - pmid:23723232
DO  - DOI:10.1126/science.1234657
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/190059
ER  -