About this Research Topic
The skyrmion was originally proposed by nuclear physicist Tony Skyrme to describe resonance states of baryons and it was recently observed in a class of magnetic materials without inversion symmetry. It consists of a swirling spin texture and can be characterized by a non-trivial topological charge. Due to their small size ranging from 1-100 nm, low driven current density, and desirable stability, magnetic skyrmions are regarded as promising information carriers for future high-density storage devices and information processing technologies. Therefore, this field has attracted significant research attention in both fundamental physics, such as spin-torque driven skyrmion dynamics, skyrmion Hall effect, topological Hall effect, and higher-order topological edge states as well as for technical applications such as skyrmion logic gates, racetrack memory, and magnetic tweezers.
With the rapid development of skyrmion physics, there are still many open problems yet to be fully solved, such as the efficient generation and manipulation of skyrmion propagation along a desirable path, the reduction of heating effects when driving skyrmions via an electric current, the observation of skyrmions/antiskyrmions in antiferromagnetic and frustrated systems, the potential extension of skyrmions to the exotic quantum magnets, and development of reliable skyrmion-based devices for technical applications.
This Research Topic aims to address a broad range of fundamental physics and technical applications related to magnetic skyrmions. The Research Topic will cover theoretical, numerical, and experimental work. All article types including Original Research, Review articles and Perspectives on the developing direction of this field are welcome.
Themes which may be covered by authors include:
• Interplay of skyrmions with magnons, electrons, photons, phonons, and the corresponding manipulation of skyrmions using spin-orbit torque, spin transfer torque, optical tweezers, acoustic waves, etc.
• Physical effects related to the topological structures of skyrmions and skyrmion lattices, such as skyrmion Hall effect, topological Hall effect, higher-order topological states, etc.
• Skyrmions in exotic magnetic systems, such as frustrated magnets, antiferromagnets, ferrimagnets, and quantum magnets.
• Skyrmion pinning, depinning, and propagation in magnetic structures with notches, defects, disorder, etc.
• Dynamics of magnetic structures related to skyrmions, such as bi-skyrmions, antiskyrmions, merons, antimerons, and magnetic textures in three dimensions including Bloch points, bobbers and hopfions.
• Application-oriented proposals using skyrmions for information storage, transport, and processing.
With the rapid development of skyrmion physics, there are still many open problems yet to be fully solved, such as the efficient generation and manipulation of skyrmion propagation along a desirable path, the reduction of heating effects when driving skyrmions via an electric current, the observation of skyrmions/antiskyrmions in antiferromagnetic and frustrated systems, the potential extension of skyrmions to the exotic quantum magnets, and development of reliable skyrmion-based devices for technical applications.
This Research Topic aims to address a broad range of fundamental physics and technical applications related to magnetic skyrmions. The Research Topic will cover theoretical, numerical, and experimental work. All article types including Original Research, Review articles and Perspectives on the developing direction of this field are welcome.
Themes which may be covered by authors include:
• Interplay of skyrmions with magnons, electrons, photons, phonons, and the corresponding manipulation of skyrmions using spin-orbit torque, spin transfer torque, optical tweezers, acoustic waves, etc.
• Physical effects related to the topological structures of skyrmions and skyrmion lattices, such as skyrmion Hall effect, topological Hall effect, higher-order topological states, etc.
• Skyrmions in exotic magnetic systems, such as frustrated magnets, antiferromagnets, ferrimagnets, and quantum magnets.
• Skyrmion pinning, depinning, and propagation in magnetic structures with notches, defects, disorder, etc.
• Dynamics of magnetic structures related to skyrmions, such as bi-skyrmions, antiskyrmions, merons, antimerons, and magnetic textures in three dimensions including Bloch points, bobbers and hopfions.
• Application-oriented proposals using skyrmions for information storage, transport, and processing.
Keywords: skyrmion, magnetization dynamics, spintronics, micromagnetism, magnetic soliton
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
