Signatures of a liquid-crystal transition in spin-wave excitations of skyrmions

Narayan Mohanta, Andrew D. Christianson, Satoshi Okamoto, Elbio Dagotto

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Understanding the spin-wave excitations of chiral magnetic order, such as the skyrmion crystal (SkX), is of fundamental interest to confirm such exotic magnetic order. The SkX is realized by competing Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya and ferromagnetic-exchange interactions with a magnetic field or anisotropy. Here, we compute the dynamical spin structure factor, using Monte Carlo and spin dynamics simulations, extracting the spin-wave spectrum in the SkX, in the vicinity of the paramagnet to SkX transition. Inside the SkX, we find six spin-wave modes, which are supplemented by another mode originating from the ferromagnetic background. Above the critical temperature Ts for the skyrmion crystallization, we find a diffusive regime, reminiscent of the liquid-to-crystal transition, revealing that topological spin texture of skyrmionic character starts to develop above Ts as the precursor of the SkX. We discuss the opportunities for the detection of the spin waves of the SkX using inelastic-neutron-scattering experiments in manganite-iridate heterostructures.

Original languageEnglish
Article number229
JournalCommunications Physics
Volume3
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2020

Funding

All members of this collaboration were supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES), Materials Sciences and Engineering Division. The authors acknowledge discussion with Elizabeth M. Skoropata and Ho Nyung Lee on the specification of their manganite-iridate thin films.

FundersFunder number
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Science
Basic Energy Sciences
Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering

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