Scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy have revealed that an extremely small variety of object, previously only predicted in theory and observed under experimental conditions, has finally been captured in 3D X-ray images.
Known as magnetic skyrmions, these statically stable solitons—a class of quasiparticles whose characteristics make them notoriously difficult to describe—remain of particular interest to researchers because of their potential applications in fields that include microelectronics. In the future, magnetic skyrmions may eventually help to facilitate new and more efficient methods of storing large amounts of data, an application that could be beneficial as scientists continue to advance the field of quantum computing.
Hampering such applications is the fact that, currently, our understanding of skyrmions remains limited, and detailed visualizations of these evasive particle-like textures have been equally elusive, until now.
New research led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory senior researcher Peter Fischer employed novel 3D X-ray imaging techniques to produce the most detailed visualizations of skyrmions ever seen, helping to characterize these curious quasiparticles and allowing researchers an unprecedented ability to measure the orientations of spins occurring within them.
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