Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Item
    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.
  • Item
    Topological transitions in ac/dc-driven superconductor nanotubes
    ([London] : Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature, 2022) Fomin, Vladimir M.; Rezaev, Roman O.; Dobrovolskiy, Oleksandr V.
    Extending of nanostructures into the third dimension has become a major research avenue in condensed-matter physics, because of geometry- and topology-induced phenomena. In this regard, superconductor 3D nanoarchitectures feature magnetic field inhomogeneity, non-trivial topology of Meissner currents and complex dynamics of topological defects. Here, we investigate theoretically topological transitions in the dynamics of vortices and slips of the phase of the order parameter in open superconductor nanotubes under a modulated transport current. Relying upon the time-dependent Ginzburg–Landau equation, we reveal two distinct voltage regimes when (i) a dominant part of the tube is in either the normal or superconducting state and (ii) a complex interplay between vortices, phase-slip regions and screening currents determines a rich FFT voltage spectrum. Our findings unveil novel dynamical states in superconductor open nanotubes, such as paraxial and azimuthal phase-slip regions, their branching and coexistence with vortices, and allow for control of these states by superimposed dc and ac current stimuli.