- Esposito, V
- Zheng, XY
- Seaberg, MH
- Montoya, SA
- Holladay, B
- Reid, AH
- Streubel, R
- Lee, JCT
- Shen, L
- Koralek, JD
- Coslovich, G
- Walter, P
- Zohar, S
- Thampy, V
- Lin, MF
- Hart, P
- Nakahara, K
- Fischer, P
- Colocho, W
- Lutman, A
- Decker, FJ
- Sinha, SK
- Fullerton, EE
- Kevan, SD
- Roy, S
- Dunne, M
- Turner, JJ
- et al.
© 2020 Author(s). Magnetic skyrmions are topologically protected spin textures with promising prospects for applications in data storage. They can form a lattice state due to competing magnetic interactions and are commonly found in a small region of the temperature - magnetic field phase diagram. Recent work has demonstrated that these magnetic quasi-particles fluctuate at the μeV energy scale. Here, we use a coherent x-ray correlation method at an x-ray free-electron laser to investigate these fluctuations in a magnetic phase coexistence region near a first-order transition boundary where fluctuations are not expected to play a major role. Surprisingly, we find that the relaxation of the intermediate scattering function at this transition differs significantly compared to that deep in the skyrmion lattice phase. The observation of a compressed exponential behavior suggests solid-like dynamics, often associated with jamming. We assign this behavior to disorder and the phase coexistence observed in a narrow field-window near the transition, which can cause fluctuations that lead to glassy behavior.