Chemical prediction of Skyrmion lattice candidates*

Chiral spin textures such as magnetic skyrmions offer a route towards more energy-efficient datastorage

technologies. Only a few dozen materials are known to host densely packed ordered phases of

skyrmions, also known as skyrmion lattices (SkLs), and most of them are non-centrosymmetric, with the

skyrmions originating in Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions. Recently, however, centrosymmetric SkLs

were reported in lanthanide intermetallics, where the origin of the chiral texture is thought to be in

frustrated Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interactions.1–4 In this talk, we report a chemical

design principle for SKL phases, based on combining our groups previous expertise predicting topological

phases with RKKY magnets. We also show that compounds we predicted accordingly show signs of a

skyrmion lattice phase, as evidenced by a strong topological Hall effect.

References:

1 T. Kurumaji, T. Nakajima, M. Hirschberger, A. Kikkawa, Y. Yamasaki, H. Sagayama, H. Nakao, Y.

Taguchi, T.-h. Arima, and Y. Tokura, “Skyrmion lattice with a giant topological Hall effect in a frustrated

triangular-lattice magnet”, Science 365, 914–918 (2019).

2 M. Hirschberger, T. Nakajima, S. Gao, L. Peng, A. Kikkawa, T. Kurumaji, M. Kriener, Y. Yamasaki, H.

Sagayama, H. Nakao, K. Ohishi, K. Kakurai, Y. Taguchi, X. Yu, T.-h. Arima, and Y. Tokura, “Skyrmion

phase and competing magnetic orders on a breathing kagomÅLe lattice”, Nature Communications 10, 5831

(2019).

3 N. D. Khanh, T. Nakajima, X. Yu, S. Gao, K. Shibata, M. Hirschberger, Y. Yamasaki, H. Sagayama,

H. Nakao, L. Peng, K. Nakajima, R. Takagi, T.-h. Arima, Y. Tokura, and S. Seki, “Nanometric square

skyrmion lattice in a centrosymmetric tetragonal magnet”, Nature Nanotechnology 15, 444–449 (2020).

4 R. Takagi, N. Matsuyama, V. Ukleev, L. Yu, J. S. White, S. Francoual, J. R. L. Mardegan, S. Hayami, H.

Saito, K. Kaneko, K. Ohishi, Y. .Onuki, T.-h. Arima, Y. Tokura, T. Nakajima, and S. Seki, “Square and

rhombic lattices of magnetic skyrmions in a centrosymmetric binary compound”, Nature Communications

13, 1472 (2022).