Topological Hall effect in thin films of the Heisenberg ferromagnet EuO

Abstract

We report on the topological Hall effect (THE) in centrosymmetric EuO thin films. This THE signal persists down to the lowest temperature in the metallic region below 50 K for the films thinner than 200 nm. The signal rapidly disappears by tilting the applied magnetic field from surface normal, suggestive of noncoplanar spin configuration such as two-dimensional skyrmions. This observation possibly substantiates the theoretical proposal of magnetic skyrmions in 2D Heisenberg ferromagnets in marked contrast to better established $B20\text{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{type}$ chiral helimagnets.