Skyrmionic materials hold the potential for future information technologies, such as racetrack memories. Key to that advancement are systems that exhibit high tunability and scalability, with stored information being easy to read and write by means of all-electrical techniques. Topological magnetic excitations such as skyrmions and antiskyrmions, give rise to a characteristic topological Hall effect. However, the electrical detection of antiskyrmions, in both thin films and bulk samples has been challenging to date. Here, we apply magneto-optical microscopy combined with electrical transport to explore the antiskyrmion phase as it emerges in crystalline mesoscale structures of the Heusler magnet Mn_1.4PtSn. We reveal the Hall signature of antiskyrmions in line with our theoretical model, comprising anomalous and topological components. We examine its dependence on the vertical device thickness, field orientation, and temperature. Our atomistic simulations and experimental anisotropy studies demonstrate the link between antiskyrmions and a complex magnetism that consists of competing ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic, and chiral exchange interactions, not captured by micromagnetic simulations.
The discovery of superconductivity in the quantum critical Kondo-lattice system YbRh2Si2 at an extremely low temperature of 2 mK has inspired efforts to perform high-resolution electrical resistivity measurements down to this temperature range in highly conductive materials. Here we show that control over the sample geometry by microstructuring using focused-ion-beam techniques allows to reach ultra-low temperatures and increase signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) tenfold, without adverse effects to sample quality. In five experiments we show four-terminal sensing resistance and magnetoresistance measurements which exhibit sharp phase transitions at the Neel temperature, and Shubnikov-de-Haas (SdH) oscillations between 13 T and 18 T where we identified a new SdH frequency of 0.39 kT. The increased SNR allowed resistance fluctuation (noise) spectroscopy that would not be possible for bulk crystals, and confirmed intrinsic 1/f-type fluctuations. Under controlled strain, two thin microstructured samples exhibited a large increase of T-N from 67 mK up to 188 mK while still showing clear signatures of the phase transition and SdH oscillations. Superconducting quantum interference device-based thermal noise spectroscopy measurements in a nuclear demagnetization refrigerator down to 0.95 mK, show a sharp superconducting transition at T-c = 1.2 mK. These experiments demonstrate microstructuring as a powerful tool to investigate the resistance and the noise spectrum of highly conductive correlated metals over wide temperature ranges.
S. Hamann, 2 T. Förster, D. I. Gorbunov, M. König, M. Uhlarz, J. Wosnitza, 3 and T. Helm 2, ∗ Hochfeld-Magnetlabor Dresden (HLD-EMFL) and Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), 01328 Dresden, Germany Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, 01187 Dresden, Germany Institut für Festkörperund Materialphysik, TU Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany (Dated: August 18, 2021)
Yb(Rh_{1-x}Co_{x})_{2}Si_{2} is a model system to address two challenging problems in the field of strongly correlated electron systems. The first is the intriguing competition between ferromagnetic (FM) and antiferromagnetic (AFM) order when approaching a magnetic quantum critical point (QCP). The second is the occurrence of magnetic order along a very hard crystalline electric field (CEF) direction, i.e., along the one with the smallest available magnetic moment. Here, we present a detailed study of the evolution of the magnetic order in this system from a FM state with moments along the very hard c direction at x=0.27 towards the yet unknown magnetic state at x=0. We first observe a transition towards an AFM canted state with decreasing x and then to a pure AFM state. This confirms that the QCP in YbRh_{2}Si_{2} is AFM, but the phase diagram is very similar to those observed in some inherently FM systems like NbFe_{2} and CeRuPO, which suggests that the basic underlying instability might be FM. Despite the huge CEF anisotropy the ordered moment retains a component along the c axis also in the AFM state. The huge CEF anisotropy in Yb(Rh_{1-x}Co_{x})_{2}Si_{2} excludes that this hard-axis ordering originates from a competing exchange anisotropy as often proposed for other heavy-fermion systems. Instead, it points to an order-by-disorder based mechanism.
A ferromagnetic quantum critical point is thought not to exist in two- and three-dimensional metallic systems yet is realized in the Kondo lattice compound YbNi_{4}(P,As)_{2}, possibly due to its one-dimensionality. It is crucial to investigate the dimensionality of the Fermi surface of YbNi_{4}P_{2} experimentally, but common probes such as angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and quantum oscillation measurements are lacking. Here, we study the magnetic-field dependence of transport and thermodynamic properties of YbNi_{4}P_{2}. The Kondo effect is continuously suppressed, and additionally we identify nine Lifshitz transitions between 0.4 and 18 T. We analyze the transport coefficients in detail and identify the type of Lifshitz transitions as neck or void type to gain information on the Fermi surface of YbNi_{4}P_{2}. The large number of Lifshitz transitions observed within this small energy window is unprecedented and results from the particular flat renormalized band structure with strong 4f-electron character shaped by the Kondo lattice effect.
The heavy-fermion metal YbRh2Si2 is a weak antiferromagnet below T-N = 0.07 K. Application of a low magnetic field B-c = 0.06 T (perpendicular to c) is sufficient to continuously suppress the antiferromagnetic (AF) order. Below T approximate to 10 K, the Sommerfeld coefficient of the electronic specific heat gamma(T) exhibits a logarithmic divergence. At T < 0.3 K, gamma(T) similar to T-epsilon (epsilon : 0.3-0.4), while the electrical resistivity rho(T) = rho(0) + aT (rho(0): residual resistivity). Upon extrapolating finite-T data of transport and thermodynamic quantities to T = 0, one observes (i) a vanishing of the "Fermi surface crossover" scale T* (B), (ii) an abrupt jump of the initial Hall coefficient R-H(B) and (iii) a violation of the Wiedemann Franz law at B = B-c, the field-induced quantum critical point (QCP). These observations are interpreted as evidence of a critical destruction of the heavy quasiparticles, i. e., propagating Kondo singlets, at the QCP of this material.