Most people can go their entire lives without knowing what skyrmions are, and they generally get along just fine.

However, skyrmions are probably more useful than you think. New research on them has resulted in an article being published in the highly prestigious journal Nature Nanotechnology, making these nanoscopic discoveries a big deal.

The vast majority of the research has been carried out at the Institute of Physics at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, but a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has also been involved.

“Skyrmions are small, magnetic vortices that can store information in a completely new way,” explained Asle Sudbø, who is head of NTNU’s Centre for Quantum Spintronics (QuSpin).

These nanoscale vortices could help in the development of computers that resemble biological brains.

This means they could play a key role in developing the technology of the future.

“Instead of the current technology, where we constantly need more space and energy to process data, skyrmions could make it possible to build much smaller and more energy-efficient data storage systems,” explained Sudbø.

But more energy-efficient storage is not all; skyrmions are key to advanced fields such as spintronics and the study of topological quantum effects. Fortunately, you do not need to know what this is either, but some of it is very exciting – even for non-physicists.

“These nanoscale vortices could help develop computers that resemble biological brains,” said Sudbø.

These computers would then operate using magnetism instead of transistors, and would therefore require hardly any electricity.

But what exactly are the new findings?

Skyrmions, which are magnetic vortices, often arrange themselves in a kind of lattice, almost like a crystal, but on a much smaller scale. Researchers can manipulate these lattices.

This is crucial if we are ever to be able to use them in new computer technology.

“For the first time, researchers have managed to film how a magnetic skyrmion lattice melts in real time, while simultaneously being able to manipulate each individual skyrmion directly as they film it. For example, both their shape and size can be changed ‘on the fly’,” said Sudbø.

The video can be downloaded here: Skyrmion lattice melting

The fact that researchers can now see how the skyrmions react when the lattices collapse provides a new tool for controlling them more effectively.

This could revolutionize the way we think about computers.

“The findings give us new insight into how these types of particles behave. This could therefore become important for the development of more energy-efficient computer technology in the future,” said Sudbø.

In the future, this line of research could contribute to everything from improved data storage to new quantum technology.

“This could revolutionize the way we think about computers,” concluded Sudbø.