Isotropic Heisenberg exchange naturally appears as the main interaction in magnetism, usually favouring long-range spin-ordered phases. The anisotropic Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction arises from relativistic corrections and is a priori much weaker, even though it may sufficiently compete with the isotropic one to yield new spin textures. Here, we challenge this well-established paradigm, and propose to explore a Heisenberg-exchange-free magnetic world. There, the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction induces magnetic frustration in two dimensions, from which the competition with an external magnetic field results in a new mechanism producing skyrmions of nanoscale size. The isolated nanoskyrmion can already be stabilized in a few-atom cluster, and may then be used as LEGO block to build a large magnetic mosaic. The realization of such topological spin nanotextures in sp- and p-electron compounds or in ultracold atomic gases would open a new route toward robust and compact magnetic memories.
@article{arxiv.1710.03044,
title = {Heisenberg-exchange-free nanoskyrmion mosaic},
author = {E. A. Stepanov and S. A. Nikolaev and C. Dutreix and M. I. Katsnelson and V. V. Mazurenko},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.03044},
year = {2019}
}