Skyrmion–antiskyrmion pair creation and annihilation in a cubic chiral magnet

A fundamental property of particles and antiparticles (such as electrons and positrons, respectively) is their ability to annihilate one another. A similar behaviour is predicted for magnetic solitons 1 —localized spin textures that can be distinguished by their topological index Q . Theoretically, magnetic topological solitons with opposite values of Q , such as skyrmions 2 and their antiparticles (namely, antiskyrmions), are expected to be able to continuously merge and annihilate 3 . However, experimental verification of such particle–antiparticle pair production and annihilation processes has been lacking. Here we report the creation and annihilation of skyrmion–antiskyrmion pairs in an exceptionally thin film of the cubic chiral magnet of B20-type FeGe observed using transmission electron microscopy. Our observations are highly reproducible and are fully consistent with micromagnetic simulations. Our findings provide a new platform for the fundamental studies of particles and antiparticles based on magnetic solids and open new perspectives for practical applications of thin films of isotropic chiral magnets. Magnetic skyrmions—a type of localized spin texture—have been theoretically predicted to annihilate with counterparts known as antiskyrmions. By means of electron microscopy, such annihilation has now been observed in a cubic chiral magnet.