Skyrmion instabilities and distorted spiral states in a frustrated chiral magnet

Abstract

Magnetic skyrmions are particle-like topological excitations that recently generated much interest as candidates for future spintronic devices based on skyrmion small size, enhanced topological stability, and/or mutual interaction. Here we examine the properties of isolated skyrmions in a frustrated chiral magnet with competing Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya and frustrated exchange interactions. We show that the skyrmion size drastically decreases even for small values of competing stabilization mechanisms. Skyrmion mutual interaction remains attracting as is inherent for frustrated skyrmions, but the value of the Dzyaloshinskii constant regulates the number of minima in the interaction potentials. Moreover, the constructed phase diagrams for a chiral helimagnet contain a distorted spiral state that can be considered as a buffer between the helicoidal and conical one-dimensional modulations. The formulated concepts may further enhance the functionalities of spintronic devices. In particular, the controlled instability of skyrmions with respect to the conical state allows to obtain bimeron-like structures. Moreover, our results provide physical insight into the chiral states in the magnetic systems, e.g., in MnSi$_{1-x}$Ge$_x$.