Skyrmionics: From Magnetic Excitations to Functioning Low-Energy Devices

托尼·斯凯尔姆（Tony Skyrme）提出，在特殊情况下，有可能稳定场中的涡旋状旋转，从而产生拓扑稳定的物体。这个想法，有效地创造了一种新型的基本粒子，已经实现了最近在磁性材料中发现的skyrmions。手征磁体中skyrmion的存在及其自组织成skyrmion晶格的证实，使得skyrmion物理可以说是目前磁学研究中最热门的话题。Skyrmions是物质的激发，其发生和集体性质是神秘的，但它有望促进我们对物质的基本理解，并作为高效的存储元件进行技术部署。在各种材料中发现skyrmion之后，仍然存在一些紧迫的问题，这些问题阻碍了该领域的发展：导致skyrmion晶格相的相变的一般性质是什么，其结构的性质，激发和稳定性以及我们如何在未来的设备中利用这种物质的独特磁性？这些问题只是最近才开始由几个大型国际财团处理，而且远未得到解决。对于英国来说，要在这个竞争激烈的领域竞争，需要一个重大项目，汇集英国材料合成和最先进的理论和实验技术专家。我们提出了第一个资助英国国家计划，调查skyrmion，skyrmion晶格和skyrmionic设备。我们的系统方法结合了来自不同领域的专家，旨在回答有关磁skyrmions状态的基本问题，并与工业合作伙伴合作开发基于这种物理学的技术应用。

Tony Skyrme proposed that under special circumstances it is possible to stabilize vortex-like whirls in fields to produce topologically stable objects. This idea, effectively of creating a new type of fundamental particle, has been realised with the recent discovery of skyrmions in magnetic materials. The confirmation of the existence of skyrmions in chiral magnets and of their self-organization into a skyrmion lattice has made skyrmion physics arguably the hottest topic in magnetism research at the moment. Skyrmions are excitations of matter whose occurrence and collective properties are mysterious, but which hold promise for advancing our basic understanding of matter and also for technological deployment as highly efficient memory elements. Following the discovery of skyrmions in a variety of materials, several urgent questions remain which are holding back the field: what are the general properties of the phase transitions that lead to the skyrmion lattice phase, the nature of its structure, excitations and stability and how might we exploit the unique magnetic properties of this matter in future devices? These questions have only recently begun to be addressed by several large international consortia and are far from being resolved. For the UK to contend in this highly competitive field a major project is required that brings together UK experts in materials synthesis and state-of-the-art theoretical and experimental techniques. We propose the first funded UK national programme to investigate skyrmions, skyrmion lattices and skyrmionic devices. Our systematic approach, combining experts from different fields is aimed at answering basic questions about the status of magnetic skyrmions and working with industrial partners to develop technological applications founded on this physics.