Eurekalert March 3, 2020
Researchers in Germany discovered that skyrmions and antiskyrmions are stabilized in different materials by a magnetic interaction that is directly tied to the structure of the host material. However, what was previously overlooked is that the magnetic dipoles also significantly interact with each other via their dipole-dipole interaction. This interaction always prefers skyrmions. For this reason, even “antiskyrmion materials” can exhibit skyrmions (but not vice versa). This happens preferably as the temperature is lowered. At a critical transition temperature, the two distinct objects coexist. The finding allows for an advanced version of the racetrack memory data storage. This concept would be more reliable than conventional racetracks…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Schematic representation of the magnetization in an advanced racetrack memory data storage. Skyrmions (blue) and antiskyrmions (red) constitute the ‘1’ and ‘0’ bits, respectively. Credit: Dr. Börge Göbel/MLU