Creation, annihilation and transport of nonmagnetic antiskyrmions within Ginzburg–Landau–Devonshire model

Abstract

Atomistic model calculations recently revealed that the polarization pattern at the cross section through nanoscale ferroelectric nanodomains in rhombohedral barium titanate shows a clear antiskyrmion attributes such as the net invariant topological charge of minus two. The present work confirms that these topological defects also exist as local minima in the discretized Ginzburg–Landau–Devonshire model, which is widely used in phase-field modeling studies. We explore by phase-field simulations how an electric field can be used to create or move antiskyrmions within a monodomain ferroelectric matrix. The process of field-induced antiskyrmion annihilation reveals the existence of a discrete ladder of intermediate antiskyrmion states with distinct radii but common symmetry, topology, and geometrical properties.