Magnetic Skyrmion Induced Topological Superconductivity*

Magnetic skyrmions are a stable topological spin texture found in magnetic materials with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions. These skyrmions are highly controllable and can be written and deleted using spin polarized currents [1] and varied in size from 1 nm to 100 nm [2] by controlling material properties such as thickness or doping [3].

Here, we investigate magnet-superconductor heterostructures in which the presence of a magnetic skyrmion lattice gives rise to the emergence of topological superconductivity. We demonstrate that tuning between different topological phases can be achieved by varying the size of the skyrmions, the magnetic exchange coupling, and the chemical potential. We also show that the presence of magnetic skyrmions gives rise to a characteristic spatial structure of chiral Majorana edge modes, and of the induced superconducting triplet correlations, which can be probed experimentally.

[1] N. Romming, et. al., Science 341, 6146 (2013)
[2] X. S. Wang, H. Y. Yuan, and X. R. Wang, Nat. Commun. Phys. 1, 31 (2018)
[3] K. Shibata, et. al., Nat. Nanotechnol. 8, 723-728 (2013)