Magnetic skyrmions are whirling spin textures, which hold great promise to store and process the information at the nanoscale in future memory and logic devices. However, to realize such devices, small-sized skyrmions must be stabilized at ambient conditions without the need of an external magnetic field. Using magnetic heterostructures in which interlayer exchange coupling acts as an effective internal magnetic field the research team demonstrated that magnetic skyrmions with a mean diameter of just 60 nm can be stabilized at room temperature.

Find out more about the work here: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-019-0516-z