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Thickness-dependent topological spin texture nucleation in the high-temperature two-dimensional ferromagnet Fe3GaTe2

Y. Sun1,*, M. T. Birch2,†, D. A. Mayoh3, Y. Liu1, S. Satheesh1, G. Balakrishnan3, M. Weigand4, S. Wintz4, and M. Burghard1,‡

  • *Contact author: y.sun@fkf.mpg.de
  • †Contact author: maximilian.birch@riken.jp
  • ‡Contact author: m.burghard@fkf.mpg.de
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Phys. Rev. B 113, 064425 – Published 17 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/5nvm-zlgw

Abstract

Fe3GaTe2 (FGaT) has emerged as a promising two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnet with intrinsic magnetism above room temperature. Here, we investigate the thickness-dependent nucleation and stability of topological spin textures in exfoliated FGaT flakes with thicknesses ranging from 45 to 290nm using scanning transmission x-ray microscopy. The domain size exhibits a nonmonotonic dependence on thickness, deviating from classical Kittel's t1/2 scaling due to enhanced domain-wall energy in thinner samples. Magnetic phase diagrams indicate that skyrmion nucleation becomes increasingly favorable with thickness, with a significantly expanded stability region in thicker flakes. In contrast, high-order spin textures are suppressed below ∼75nm, highlighting a critical limitation for the miniaturization of 2D skyrmion-based spintronic devices. Our results emphasize the need for better stabilization strategies, such as interfacial engineering in van der Waals heterostructures, to enable robust topological textures in thin 2D magnet flakes.

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. B 113, 064425– Published 17 February, 2026
  • Received 2 September 2025
  • Revised 11 November 2025
  • Accepted 29 January 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by Max Planck Society.

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