Helical and skyrmion lattice phases in three-dimensional chiral magnets: Effect of anisotropic interactions

Abstract

In this work, we study the magnetic orders of the classical spin model with the anisotropic exchange and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions in order to understand the uniaxial stress effect in chiral magnets such as MnSi. Variational zero temperature (T) calculated results demonstrate that various helical orders can be developed depending on the magnitude of the interaction anisotropy, consistent with the experimental observations at low T. Furthermore, the creation and annihilation of the skyrmions by the uniaxial pressure can be also qualitatively reproduced in our Monte Carlo simulations. Thus, our work suggests that the interaction anisotropy tuned by applied uniaxial stress may play an essential role in modulating the magnetic orders in strained chiral magnets.