Skyrmion lattice is a spin configuration that exists in B20 materials. Due to its special topological stability and low power consumption, the configuration sees potentially in a variety of applications such as magnetic memory and spin device.

Recent study demonstrated that uniaxial anisotropy can stabilize Skyrmion phase in 1D nanowire. An effective magnetic anisotropy, likely due to the large surface-to-volume ratio of these nanostructures, is responsible for the stabilization. Using cantilever torque magnetometry, researchers obtained phase diagrams for 1D MnSi nanowire parallel and perpendicular to the external magnetic field, respectively. Skyrmion phase is confined to a small region of magnetic field and temperature near the critical temperature in the nanowire perpendicular to the field, similar to that observed in bulk MnSi, while it can be stabilized and extends from around 29 K down to at least 0.4 K when the nanowire is parallel to the field. These findings provide an important basis for further investigation of the geometry-engineering of Skyrmion phase and its stability.

The study was conducted by Prof. XUE Fei from the high magnetic field laboratory, CAS (CHMFL), Prof. Martino Poggio from University of Basel, and Prof. JIN Song from University of Wisconsin？Madison.

The results have been published in Nano Letter 2015, 15 (7).