Controlling skyrmions with lasers

EPFL scientists have produced controllable stable skyrmions using laser pulses, taking a step towards significantly more energy-efficient memory devices. The work is published in Physical Review Letters. A skyrmion is a collection of electron spins that look like a vortex in certain magnetic materials. Skyrmions can exist individually or in patterns referred to as lattices. Named after British physicist Tony Skyrme who first theorized the existence of their elementary-particle counterparts in 1962, skyrmions have attracted attention for their potential in being used in so-called "spintronic" devices, which would use the spin rather than the charge of electrons, thus becoming significantly more miniaturized and energy-efficient. Most interest has been focused on memory-storage technologies. Skyrmions can be rather stable and require very little energy for writing or erasing them: some studies have shown that creating and annihilating skyrmions could be almost 10,000 times more energy-efficient than conventional data-storage devices.