Controlling the nucleation and annihilation of skyrmions with magnetostatic interactions

Abstract

Skyrmions have become one of the most visited topics during the last decade in condensed matter physics. In this work, and by means of analytical calculations and micromagnetic simulations, we explore the effect of the magnetostatic field generated by a magnetic tip on the stability of skyrmions. Our results show that the interaction energy between the tip and the skyrmion plays a fundamental role in the stabilization of N\'eel skyrmions confined in nanodisks, allowing its nucleation and annihilation, and also providing precise control of its size and polarity. Based on our results, we propose a very simple and cyclic method to nucleate and annihilate skyrmions, as well as to control their polarity and chirality. This proposal could open new possibilities for logic devices taking advantage of all the degrees of freedom that skyrmionic textures have.