Dynamical generation of skyrmion and bimeron crystals by a circularly polarized electric field in frustrated magnets

Abstract

A skyrmion crystal (SkX) has attracted much attention in condensed matter physics, since topologically nontrivial structures induce fascinating physical phenomena. The SkXs have been experimentally observed in a variety of materials, where the Zeeman coupling to the static magnetic field plays an important role in the formation of the SkXs. In this study, we theoretically propose another route to generate the SkXs by using a circularly polarized electric field. We investigate a non-equilibrium steady state in a classical frustrated Heisenberg magnet under the circularly polarized electric field, where the electric field is coupled to the electric polarization via the spin-current mechanism. By numerically solving the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation at zero temperature, we show that the electric field radiation generates a SkX with a high topological number in the high-frequency regime, where the sign of the skyrmion number is fixed to be negative (positive) under the left (right) circularly polarized field. The intense electric field melts these SkXs and generates isolated skyrmions. We clarify that the microscopic origin is effective electric-field-induced three-spin interactions by adopting the high-frequency expansion in the Floquet formalism. Furthermore, we find that the electric field radiation generates another type of SkXs, a bimeron crystal, in the low-frequency regime. Our results provide a way to generate the SkXs and control the topology by the circularly polarized electric field.