History-dependent domain and skyrmion formation in 2D van der Waals magnet Fe3GeTe2

The discovery of two-dimensional magnets has initiated a new field of research, exploring both fundamental low-dimensional magnetism, and prospective spintronic applications. Recently, observations of magnetic skyrmions in the 2D ferromagnet Fe₃GeTe₂ (FGT) have been reported, introducing further application possibilities. However, controlling the exhibited magnetic state requires systematic knowledge of the history-dependence of the spin textures, which remains largely unexplored in 2D magnets. In this work, we utilise real-space imaging, and complementary simulations, to determine and explain the thickness-dependent magnetic phase diagrams of an exfoliated FGT flake, revealing a complex, history-dependent emergence of the uniformly magnetised, stripe domain and skyrmion states. The results show that the interplay of the dominant dipolar interaction and strongly temperature dependent out-of-plane anisotropy energy terms enables the selective stabilisation of all three states at zero field, and at a single temperature, while the Dzyaloshinksii-Moriya interaction must be present to realise the observed Néel-type domain walls. The findings open perspectives for 2D devices incorporating topological spin textures.

Fe₃GeTe₂, known as FGT, is a van der Waals magnetic material that was recently shown to host magnetic skyrmions. Here, Birch et al using both X-ray and electron microscopy to study the stability of skyrmions in FGT, revealing how the sample history can influence skyrmion formation

Reversible activation of pH-sensitive cell penetrating peptides attached to gold surfaces

pH-sensitive viral fusion protein mimics are widely touted as a promising route towards site-specific delivery of therapeutic compounds across lipid membranes. Here, we demonstrate that a fusion protein mimic, designed to achieve a reversible, pH-driven helix-coil transition mechanism, retains its functionality when covalently bound to a surface.

Effect of donor-acceptor substitution on the nonlinear optical properties of oligo(1,4-phenyleneethynylene)s studied by third harmonic generation spectroscopy

Third-harmonic generation (THG) spectroscopy was performed for oligo(1,4-phenyleneethynylene)s (OPEs) with terminal donor-acceptor (DA) substitution and compared to the results of merely donor substituted OPEs and regular OPE chains with 2,5-dipropoxy benzene rings. Both, extension of the conjugation and push-pull effect enhance the molecular hyperpolarizability gamma, even for the DAOPEs, which exhibit a hypsochromic shift of the long-wavelength absorption for increasing length L of the conjugated chain.

Picosecond degenerate four-wave mixing in colloidal solutions of gold nanoparticles at high repetition rates

Time-resolved degenerate four-wave mixing experiments on a colloidal solution of 50-nm gold particles in acetone, using a high-repetition-rate laser source, are presented. The signal is found to depend strongly on the repetition rate of the incident radiation and above a frequency of 300 kHz is impossible to measure.