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Electric field control of the skyrmion lattice in Cu2OSeO3
J S White1, I Levatić, A A Omrani
1Laboratory for Quantum Magnetism, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. jonathan.white@epfl.ch
Abstract:
Small-angle neutron scattering has been employed to study the influence of applied electric (E-)fields on the skyrmion lattice in the chiral lattice magnetoelectric Cu(2)OSeO(3). Using an experimental geometry with the E-field parallel to the [111] axis, and the magnetic field parallel to the [11(-)0] axis, we demonstrate that the effect of applying an E-field is to controllably rotate the skyrmion lattice around the magnetic field axis. Our results are an important first demonstration for a microscopic coupling between applied E-fields and the skyrmions in an insulator, and show that the general emergent properties of skyrmions may be tailored according to the properties of the host system.
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