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  • Letter

Emergent skyrmion-based chiral order in zero-field Heisenberg antiferromagnets on the breathing kagome lattice

Kazushi Aoyama1 and Hikaru Kawamura2

  • 1Department of Earth and Space Science, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, Osaka 560-0043, Japan
  • 2Molecular Photoscience Research Center, Kobe University, Kobe 657-8501, Japan

Phys. Rev. B 105, L100407 – Published 25 March, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.105.L100407

Abstract

We show that classical Heisenberg antiferromagnets on the breathing kagome lattice can be a platform to realize a zero-field topological order of the scalar spin chirality which can be viewed as a miniature skyrmion crystal (SkX) of discrete form with a small number of spins in its magnetic unit cell. In the model, a third nearest-neighbor (NN) antiferromagnetic interaction along the bond direction J3 and the breathing bond alternation characterized by the ratio of the NN interaction for large triangles to that for small ones, J1′/J1, are essential. It is found by means of Monte Carlo simulations that a commensurate triple-Q state appearing for relatively strong J3 at zero field is the noncoplanar state with the SkX structure in the breathing case of J1′/J1≠1, while in the uniform case of J1′/J1=1, it is a collinear state favored by thermal fluctuations. The origin of this chiral order and experimental implications of our result are also discussed.

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