Three-sublattice skyrmion crystal in the antiferromagnetic triangular lattice

H. D. ROSALES; D. C. CABRA; P. PUJOL

PHYSICAL REVIEW B

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2015 vol. 92 p. 214439 - 214445

1098-0121

The frustrated classical antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interactions on the triangular lattice is studied under a magnetic field by means of semiclassical calculations and large-scale Monte Carlo simulations. We show that even a small DM interaction induces the formation of an antiferromagnetic skyrmion crystal (AF-SkX) state. Unlike what is observed in ferromagnetic materials, we show that the AF-SkX state consists of threeinterpenetrating skyrmion crystals (one by sublattice), and most importantly, the AF-SkX state seems to survive in the limit of zero temperature. To characterize the phase diagram we compute the average of the topological order parameter which can be associated with the number of topological charges or skyrmions. As the magnetic field increases this parameter presents a clear jump, indicating a discontinuous transition from a spiral phase into the AF-SkX phase, where multiple Bragg peaks coexist in the spin structure factor. For higher fields, a second (probably continuous) transition occurs into a featureless paramagnetic phase.