Stabilization and current-induced motion of antiskyrmion in the presence of anisotropic Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

Abstract

Topological defects in magnetism have attracted great attention due to fundamental research interests and potential novel spintronics applications. Rich examples of topological defects can be found in nanoscale nonuniform spin textures, such as monopoles, domain walls, vortices, and skyrmions. Recently, skyrmions stabilized by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction have been studied extensively. However, the stabilization of antiskyrmions is less straightforward. Here, using numerical simulations we demonstrate that antiskyrmions can be a stable spin configuration in the presence of anisotropic Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. We find current-driven antiskyrmion motion that has a transverse component, namely, the antiskyrmion Hall effect. The antiskyrmion gyroconstant is opposite to that for skyrmion, which allows the current-driven propagation of coupled skyrmion-antiskyrmion pairs without an apparent skyrmion Hall effect. The antiskyrmion Hall angle strongly depends on the current direction, and a zero antiskyrmion Hall angle can be achieved at a critic current direction. These results open up possibilities to tailor the spin topology in nanoscale magnetism, which may be useful in the emerging field of skyrmionics.