Uniaxial-stress Control of Magnetic Skyrmion Phase in MnSi

- How the SANS Experiment with Uniaxial Stress was Realized at TAIKAN in MLF -

Abstract

Magnetic skyrmions are of increasing interest in condensed matter physics, because of their topologically-nontrivial vortex-like spin textures. We investigated effects of uniaxial stress on the skyrmion state in a chiral metallic compound MnSi, revealing that phase transition between a (topologically trivial) conical magnetic phase and the skyrmion phase can be controlled by applying uniaxial stress of up to 100 MPa. We directly observed the pressure induced phase transition from the skyrmion phase to the conical phase by using the TOF-SANS instrument TAIKAN in MLF of J-PARC.