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    Detection of antiskyrmions by topological Hall effect in Heusler compounds
    (Woodbury, NY : Inst., 2020) Kumar, Vivek; Kumar, Nitesh; Reehuis, Manfred; Gayles, Jacob; Sukhanov, A.S.; Hoser, Andreas; Damay, Françoise; Shekhar, Chandra; Adler, Peter; Felser, Claudia
    Heusler compounds having D2d crystal symmetry gained much attention recently due to the stabilization of a vortexlike spin texture called antiskyrmions in thin lamellae of Mn1.4Pt0.9Pd0.1Sn as reported in the work of Nayak et al. [Nature (London) 548, 561 (2017)10.1038/nature23466]. Here we show that bulk Mn1.4Pt0.9Pd0.1Sn undergoes a spin-reorientation transition from a collinear ferromagnetic to a noncollinear configuration of Mn moments below 135 K, which is accompanied by the emergence of a topological Hall effect. We tune the topological Hall effect in Pd and Rh substituted Mn1.4PtSn Heusler compounds by changing the intrinsic magnetic properties and spin textures. A unique feature of the present system is the observation of a zero-field topological Hall resistivity with a sign change which indicates the robust formation of antiskyrmions. © 2020 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.
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    Observation of fractional spin textures in a Heusler material
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2022) Jena, Jagannath; Göbel, Börge; Hirosawa, Tomoki; Díaz, Sebastián A.; Wolf, Daniel; Hinokihara, Taichi; Kumar, Vivek; Mertig, Ingrid; Felser, Claudia; Lubk, Axel; Loss, Daniel; Parkin, Stuart S.P.
    Recently a zoology of non-collinear chiral spin textures has been discovered, most of which, such as skyrmions and antiskyrmions, have integer topological charges. Here we report the experimental real-space observation of the formation and stability of fractional antiskyrmions and fractional elliptical skyrmions in a Heusler material. These fractional objects appear, over a wide range of temperature and magnetic field, at the edges of a sample, whose interior is occupied by an array of nano-objects with integer topological charges, in agreement with our simulations. We explore the evolution of these objects in the presence of magnetic fields and show their interconversion to objects with integer topological charges. This means the topological charge can be varied continuously. These fractional spin textures are not just another type of skyrmion, but are essentially a new state of matter that emerges and lives only at the boundary of a magnetic system. The coexistence of both integer and fractionally charged spin textures in the same material makes the Heusler family of compounds unique for the manipulation of the real-space topology of spin textures and thus an exciting platform for spintronic and magnonic applications.