Dresden (dpa / sn) - Dresden researchers have succeeded in three-dimensional imaging of magnetic nanovortices (skyrmions). As the Technical University of Dresden announced on Monday, they received an award from the European Society for Microscopy. Such an image was the first to succeed in the world, it said. The scientists found that these tiny vortices are actually shaped like tubes. "The skyrmion tubes move like hurricanes in the material, and if another hurricane gets too close, they change," explained the physicist Axel Lubk.
"Until now, experts only had a two-dimensional image of the skyrmions, which offer great potential for the novel storage and processing of large amounts of information. The three-dimensional image is a real milestone for solid state physics," said Matthias Vojta, Dresden spokesman for the "ct.qmat" cluster of excellence. (Complexity and Topology in Quantum Materials). It is jointly supported by the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg and the TU Dresden and brings together more than 270 scientists from 34 countries.
There is currently a real hype in information technology about skyrmions. Up until now, information has primarily been stored and processed on the basis of semiconductors. In terms of performance, however, it has limits. "The search for alternatives is occupying research and industry worldwide, and optical and magnetic information processing, also known as spintronics, are increasingly coming into focus," it said. With the help of magnetic vortices, data could be transported in a very energy-efficient and space-saving manner in the future.
