TY  - JOUR
AU  - Li, Zi-An
AU  - Zheng, Fengshan
AU  - Tavabi, Amir Hossein
AU  - Caron, Jan
AU  - Jin, Chiming
AU  - Du, Haifeng
AU  - Kovacs, Andras
AU  - Tian, Mingliang
AU  - Farle, Michael
AU  - Dunin-Borkowski, Rafal
TI  - Magnetic Skyrmion Formation at Lattice Defects and Grain Boundaries Studied by Quantitative Off-Axis Electron Holography
JO  - Nano letters
VL  - 17
IS  - 3
SN  - 1530-6984
CY  - Washington, DC
PB  - ACS Publ.
M1  - FZJ-2017-06646
SP  - 1395 - 1401
PY  - 2017
AB  - We use in situ Lorentz microscopy and off-axis electron holography to investigate the formation and characteristics of skyrmion lattice defects and their relationship to the underlying crystallographic structure of a B20 FeGe thin film. We obtain experimental measurements of spin configurations at grain boundaries, which reveal inversions of crystallographic and magnetic chirality across adjacent grains, resulting in the formation of interface spin stripes at the grain boundaries. In the absence of material defects, we observe that skyrmions lattices possess dislocations and domain boundaries, in analogy to atomic crystals. Moreover, the distorted skyrmions can flexibly change their size and shape to accommodate local geometry, especially at sites of dislocations in the skyrmion lattice. Our findings provide a detailed understanding of the elasticity of topologically protected skyrmions and their correlation with underlying material defects.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:28125235
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000396185800012
DO  - DOI:10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b04280
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/837875
ER  -