Electric manipulation of skyrmions in metals and insulators

The heat management bottleneck drives the search for alternative approaches for energy-efficient information technologies. Temporal and spatial magnetic spin textures are of great interest, since their dynamics can occur with minimal dissipation. Typical examples include spin waves (magnons), which are the fundamental quasi-particle excitations of magnetically ordered systems, and skyrmions, which are spatial spin textures that that are stabilized by their distinct topology, and can behave as independent quasi-particles. In bulk helimagnetic systems it has been demonstrated at low temperatures that skyrmions can be efficiently manipulated via electric currents with ultra-low threshold current densities.