M. Zelent, J. Tobik, M. Krawczyk, K. Y. Guslienko, and M. Mruczkiewicz
Phys. Status Solidi RRL 1700259, 1-5 (2017)
Magnetic skyrmions are stable, circularly symmetric inhomogeneous magnetization configurations. These topologically protected states of nanometer size have a potential to provide useful solution for low‐power, highdensity data storage and processing. In their Letter (article no. 1700259) Zelent et al. study the influence of confinement and dipole interactions on the skyrmion stability. In the cover image the authors present the calculated energy profile of skyrmion states as a function of skyrmion size, which shows two minima. At these minima the two skyrmions of different sizes can stabilize at the same dot. These states, shown also in the image, are stable at zero magnetic field and it is feasible to switch between them in dependence on the magnetic reversal history. This result can open a new route to develop an efficient skyrmion memory, where information would be coded as a skyrmion's size. The background of the entire image is the 3D visualization of the magnetization vectors in the skyrmion configuration.
