Interactions between individual 3D skyrmions have been measured by physicists in China, Sweden, Russia and Germany. Their study shows that the magnetic quasiparticles feel both attractive and repulsive forces, depending on the strength of an applied magnetic field. As well as providing insights into the fundamental physics of magnetic materials, the research could lead to the development of devices that store data using skyrmions.
Skyrmions were first proposed as a new type of fundamental particle in the 1950s by British physicist Tony Skyrme. While these hypothetical particles have never been seen, certain collective particle-like excitations (quasiparticles) in magnetic solids have been shown to behave much like skyrmions. These solid-state skyrmions resemble vortices and have topological stability, which means that they persist for very long times and are resilient to external perturbations such as noise. Skyrmions can be extremely small and be manipulated using relatively small amounts of energy. Together, these properties suggest that skyrmions could be used to make dense and energy efficient computer memories.
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