Establishing the fundamental magnetic interactions in the chiral Skyrmionic Mott insulator Cu(2)OSeO(3) by terahertz electron spin resonance

Phys Rev Lett. 2014 Oct 10;113(15):157205. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.157205. Epub 2014 Oct 7.

Abstract

The recent discovery of Skyrmions in Cu(2)OSeO(3) has established a new platform to create and manipulate Skyrmionic spin textures. We use high-field electron spin resonance with a terahertz free-electron laser and pulsed magnetic fields up to 64 T to probe and quantify its microscopic spin-spin interactions. In addition to the previously observed long-wavelength Goldstone mode, this technique probes also the high-energy part of the excitation spectrum which is inaccessible by standard low-frequency electron spin resonance. Fitting the behavior of the observed modes in magnetic field to a theoretical framework establishes experimentally that the fundamental magnetic building blocks of this Skyrmionic magnet are rigid, highly entangled and weakly coupled tetrahedra.