Mastering energy efficient technologies and processing large amounts of data are among thegrand challenges for a sustainable future. Our theoretical studies exploring topological excita-tions in magnets and superconductors have uncovered fascinating features with the potentialto help tackling these two challenges. The edges of two-dimensional skyrmion crystals [1,2]and the hinges in three-dimensional magnetic van der Waals heterostructures [3] support chiraltopological magnonic states. These are suitable for magnonics, the harnessing of magnons asinformation carriers, in future low-power consumption devices free of Joule heating. On theother hand, excitations in topological superconductors called Majorana bound states are thebuilding blocks of topological quantum computing—a promising route to big data processing.Majorana bound states can be realized and manipulated in magnet-superconductor hybrids: atthe ends of antiferromagnetic skyrmion chains coupled to bulk conventional superconductors [4]and at the core of ferromagnetic skyrmion-superconducting vortex pairs [5].
References
[1] S. A. Di ́az et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 187203 (2019).
[2] S. A. Di ́az et al., Phys. Rev. Research 2, 013231 (2020).
[3] A. Mook, S. A. Di ́az, et al., Phys. Rev. B 104, 024406 (2021).
[4] S. A. Di ́az et al., Phys. Rev. B 104, 214501 (2021).
[5] J. Nothhelfer, S. A. Di ́az, et al., Phys. Rev. B 105, 224509 (2022).
Condensed Matter Theory Group
Laboratory for Theoretical and Computational Physics