Project description DEENESFRITPL Engineering the dynamics of magnetic skyrmions The increasing need for new magnetic storage applications has brought to the fore new topologically stable quasiparticles known as magnetic skyrmions. They show great promise for future electronics and spintronics applications if they can be harnessed and manipulated. It is thus important to understand their dynamics, their response to external driving fields, and their high energy dissipation losses. The EU-funded Q-Skyrmions project aims to design optimal ways to manipulate skyrmion dynamics under non-equilibrium conditions to achieve tuneable energy dissipation. Controlling skyrmion dynamics and dissipation rates will enable researchers to harness them for future low-power data storage applications. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective The increasing need for new magnetic storage applications has brought to the fore new topologically stable particle-like spin configurations known as magnetic skyrmions, which appear as attractive candidates for future spintronic devices. For the efficient controllable manipulation of magnetic skyrmions, it is important to understand their dynamics, their response to external driving fields as well as their dissipation effects. Damping emerges from the coupling of the skyrmion to the environment degrees of freedom, such as electrons, magnons, or phonons, while its amplitude and form is prescribed by the microscopic details of the system. Thus, in an actual experimental setup, tuning in situ the rate at which the skyrmion dissipates is challenging. Q-Skyrmions takes up this challenge and aims to design optimal ways to manipulate skyrmion's dynamics under certain driven non-equilibrium conditions. The environment is dynamically engineered out-of-equilibrium by efficient external protocols, such as time-periodic fields, ultra-short laser pulses and thermal gradients. The interaction of the skyrmion with the reservoir degrees of freedom, gives rise to dissipation and thermal random forces that incorporate the environment’s dynamical activity and will result in a tunable dissipation. By merging concepts from the general area of quantum driven dissipative systems and exploring several features of out-of-equilibrium dynamics, the action investigates how the propagation of topological particles can be dynamically controlled by experimentally relevant protocols. In addition, the action Q-Skyrmions investigates quantum effects for atomic-scale skyrmions in magnetic insulators, ideal candidates to exhibit quantum mechanical behavior at a mesoscopic scale. We study the effect of dissipation and noise on the quantum tunneling events for a skyrmion embedded in a thermal environment, driven by time-dependent external fields under nonequilibrium conditions. Fields of science natural sciencesphysical sciencescondensed matter physicssoft matter physicsnatural sciencesphysical sciencesatomic physicsnatural sciencesphysical sciencesopticslaser physics Keywords Skyrmions Magnetism Floquet Systems Nonequilibrium systems Quantum Field Theory Langevin equation Macroscopic Quantum Phenomena Quantum Dissipation Quantum Tunneling Fluctuations and Noise Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2018 - Individual Fellowships Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2018 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF) Coordinator UNIVERSITAT ZU KOLN Net EU contribution € 246 669,12 Address Albertus magnus platz 50931 Koln Germany See on map Region Nordrhein-Westfalen Köln Köln, Kreisfreie Stadt Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00 Partners (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all Partner Partner organisations contribute to the implementation of the action, but do not sign the Grant Agreement. CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGYCORP United States Net EU contribution € 0,00 Address East california boulevard 1200 91125 Pasadena See on map Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 165 265,92