- Main
Skyrmion fluctuations at a first-order phase transition boundary
- 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, F-J;
- Sinha, SK;
- Fullerton, EE;
- Kevan, SD;
- Roy, S;
- Dunne, M;
- Turner, JJ
- et al.
Published Web Location
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0004879Abstract
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.
Many UC-authored scholarly publications are freely available on this site because of the UC's open access policies. Let us know how this access is important for you.
Main Content
Enter the password to open this PDF file:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-