Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar structures can be observed in magnetic materials.
Magnetic whirls are formed when the magnetic moments are aligned in a circular fashion. These so-called skyrmions are not just interesting for basic research -- because of their stability and their tiny dimensions they could prove crucial for the development of future magnetic storage.
For these reasons they are currently at the center of a large body of research. One of the key questions is about when and how they occur. A team of researchers from Technical University of Munich (TUM), Technical University of Dresden and the University of Cologne has shown for the first time, that magnetic skyrmions can form due to different mechanisms in separate phases in the same material. Their discovery in the chiral magnet Cu2OSeO3 near absolute zero temperature (-273.15 °C) is published in the scientific journal Nature Physics.
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