Talk Title: Skyrmions and spirals in 2D chiral magnets
Abstract: Recent developments have led to an explosion of activity on chiral magnetic materials. Experiments have directly probed topological spin textures known as skyrmions, and revealed their non-trivial properties with the potential for novel applications. I will present our theoretical results on two-dimensional systems – thin films, surfaces and oxide-interfaces – where a combination of broken inversion symmetry and spin-orbit coupling leads to chiral magnetic interactions [1]. This results in ground states with spirals and skyrmion crystals [2], which we show are particularly stable in materials with easy-plane magnetic anisotropy.
[1] S. Banerjee, O. Erten and M. Randeria, Nature Physics 9, 626 (2013).
[2] S. Banerjee, J. Rowland, O. Erten and M. Randeria, arXiv:1402.7082.