Soliton-based computing architectures have recently emerged as a promising avenue to overcome fundamental limitations of conventional information technologies, the von Neumann bottleneck. In this context, magnetic skyrmions have been widely considered for in-situ processing devices due to their mobility and enhanced lifetime in materials with broken inversion symmetry. However, modern applications in nonvolatile reservoir or neuromorphic computing raise the additional demand for nonlinear intersoliton interactions. Here we report that solitons in easy-plane magnets, such as bimerons and antibimerons, show greater versatility and potential for nonlinear interactions than skyrmions and antiskyrmions, making them superior candidates for this class of applications. Using first-principles and transition state theory, we predict the coexistence of degenerate bimerons and antibimerons at zero field in a van der Waals heterostructure ${\mathrm{Fe}}_3{\mathrm{GeTe}}_2/{\mathrm{Cr}}_2{\mathrm{Ge}}_2{\mathrm{Te}}_6$—an experimentally feasible system. We demonstrate that, owing to their distinct structural symmetry, bimerons exhibit fundamentally different behavior from skyrmions and cannot be regarded as their in-plane counterparts, as is often assumed. This distinction leads to unique properties of bimerons and antibimerons, which arise from the unbroken rotational symmetry in easy-plane magnets. These range from anisotropic soliton-soliton interactions to strong entropic effects on their lifetime, driven by the nonlocal nature of thermal excitations. Our findings reveal a broader richness of solitons in easy-plane magnets and underline their unique potential for spintronic devices.

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• First-principles calculations
• Magnetism
• Skyrmions
• Magnetic systems
• Topological materials
• Density functional theory
• Methods in magnetism
• Multiscale modeling
• Spin lattice models