UC Irvine

Magnetic skyrmions are particle-like knots of magnetization which are both highly stable under the proper conditions and at the same time very easy to move and rotate. These properties make them very promising as a basis for future spin electronic information storage and manipulation. At the same time, these structures exhibit interesting fundamental physics including emergent mass and electrodynamics and phase transitions including a crystalline state as well as being low-dimensional analogues of a model of low-energy sub-atomic particles. Accessibility to studying these objects is hampered by the fact that most skyrmion-hosting materials have to be grown either as single crystals or by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Also, predictive studies are currently mostly restricted to full numerical simulations because of the intractability of the equation describing skyrmion structure and a dearth of analytical approximations.

In this dissertation, I present work on the sputter deposition of the skyrmion hosting chiral magnetic material MnSi. MnSi was the first material observed to exhibit a skyrmion state but it has not been made by sputtering until now. I demonstrate by x-ray diffractometry and electrical measurements that the sputter-deposited MnSi exhibits properties similar to those of MBE-grown thin films including hosting skyrmions. This will hopefully improve the accessibility of experimental studies of MnSi and skyrmions. I also present an approximation for skyrmion spatial profiles which can predict skyrmion structure in a physically interesting range of material parameters and external magnetic fields. Using this structural approximation it should be possible to predict skyrmion stability and behavior under different conditions more rapidly than is possible with numerical simulations.