Emergence of skyrmion lattices and bimerons in diluted chiral magnetic thin films

Abstract

Skyrmions are topologically protected field configurations with particle-like properties that play important roles in various fields of science. Recently, skyrmions have been directly observed in chiral magnets. Here, we investigate the effects of nonmagnetic impurities (structural point-like defects) on the different initial states (random or helical states) and on the formation of the skyrmion crystal in a discrete lattice. By using first-principle calculations and Monte Carlo techniques, we have shown that even a small percentage of spin vacancies present in the chiral magnetic thin film affects considerably the skyrmion order. The main effects of impurities are somewhat similar to thermal effects. The presence of these spin vacancies also induces the formation of compact merons (bimerons) in both the helical and skyrmion states. We have also investigated the effects of adjacent impurities producing only one hole (with an almost circular shape) intentionally inserted into the plate (forming a non-simply connected manifold) on the skyrmion crystal.