TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gao, Shang
AU  - Rosales, H. Diego
AU  - Gómez Albarracín, Flavia A.
AU  - Tsurkan, Vladimir
AU  - Kaur, Guratinder
AU  - Fennell, Tom
AU  - Steffens, Paul
AU  - Boehm, Martin
AU  - Čermák, Petr
AU  - Schneidewind, Astrid
AU  - Ressouche, Eric
AU  - Cabra, Daniel C.
AU  - Rüegg, Christian
AU  - Zaharko, Oksana
TI  - Fractional antiferromagnetic skyrmion lattice induced by anisotropic couplings
JO  - Nature 
VL  - 586
SN  - 1476-4687
CY  - London [u.a.]
PB  - Nature Publ. Group78092
M1  - FZJ-2020-03238
SP  - 37-41
PY  - 2020
AB  - Magnetic skyrmions are topological solitons with a nanoscale winding spin texture that hold promise for spintronics applications1,2,3,4. Skyrmions have so far been observed in a variety of magnets that exhibit nearly parallel alignment for neighbouring spins, but theoretically skyrmions with anti-parallel neighbouring spins are also possible. Such antiferromagnetic skyrmions may allow more flexible control than conventional ferromagnetic skyrmions5,6,7,8,9,10. Here, by combining neutron scattering measurements and Monte Carlo simulations, we show that a fractional antiferromagnetic skyrmion lattice is stabilized in MnSc2S4 through anisotropic couplings. The observed lattice is composed of three antiferromagnetically coupled sublattices, and each sublattice is a triangular skyrmion lattice that is fractionalized into two parts with an incipient meron (half-skyrmion) character11,12. Our work demonstrates that the theoretically proposed antiferromagnetic skyrmions can be stabilized in real materials and represents an important step towards their implementation in spintronic devices.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:32968283
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000572352700007
DO  - DOI:10.1038/s41586-020-2716-8
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/884750
ER  -