Electric‐Current‐Assisted Nucleation of Zero‐Field Hopfion Rings
Magnetic hopfions are 3D topological solitons - knotted, vortex-like spin configurations. In chiral magnets, hopfions can appear as isolated structures or they can be linked to skyrmion strings. Previous studies employed a sophisticated protocol and a special sample geometry to nucleate such hopfions linked to one or a few skyrmion strings. Here, we introduce an electric-current-assisted nucleation protocol that is simple and independent of the sample shape and size. The resulting hopfions exhibit extraordinary stability in the presence of both positive and negative magnetic fields, in perfect agreement with micromagnetic simulations. We also present a comprehensive framework for classifying hopfions, skyrmions, and merons by deriving the corresponding homotopy group.
Authors
- Filipp N. Rybakov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3577-7966)
- Fengshan Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7354-041X)
- Dan Song (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7828-2058)
- Hongwei Du (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2138-749X)
- Nikolai S. Kiselev (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7423-0840)
- Xi Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4221-4288)
- Wen Shi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4760-0893)
- Rafal E. Dunin‐Borkowski
- Long Li
- Olle Eriksson
- Xuewen Fu
- Rui Wu
- Stefan Blügel
Institutions
- Uppsala University (SE)
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Anhui University (CN)
- Forschungszentrum Jülich (DE)
- Nankai University (CN)
- Ernst Ruska Centre (DE)
- High Magnetic Field Laboratory (CN)
- Institute of Applied Physics (RU)
- South China University of Technology (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Materials
- Published
- 2026-03-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202523417
- Primary Topic
- Topological Materials and Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00