Skyrmion electrical detection with the use of three-dimensional Topological Insulators/Ferromagnetic bilayers

The effect of the magnetic skyrmion texture on the electronic transport properties of the TI surface state coupled to a thin-film FM is numerically investigated. It is shown that both Bloch (vortex) and Néel (hedgehog) skyrmion textures induce additional scattering on top of a homogeneous background FM texture which can modify the conductance of the system. The change in conductance depends on several factors including the skyrmion size, the dimensions of the FM and the exchange interaction strength. For the Néel skyrmion, the result of the interaction strongly depends on the skyrmion number Nsk and the skyrmion helicity h. For both skyrmion types, significant change of the resistance can be achieved, which is in the order of kΩ.