{"record":{"author":{"account_ref":null,"orcid":null},"builds_on":[],"content_schema":"pubphys.content.revision/1","content_sha256":"1a34b9131fbe1fb13cf51052e342e71a75e542267fff0a6181d298a390d30635","created":"2026-10-03T07:17:59Z","files":[],"origin":{"assisted_by":[],"kind":"seed"},"parents":["5475cf5dc5b1a72283d26dc95dc6e00d7ea4e00096a7c6492e409a1816eeb011"],"salt":"40ca20fbb401f8c99131a932281227e65a0f24d82d896bb3382ce45a8d8744c9","schema":"pubphys.record/2","site":"pubphys.com","target":null,"type":"revision"},"content":{"answer_type":"value","assisted_by":[],"external_id":"cm.ferroelectric-polar-textures.polar-skyrmions","kind":"well-posed","literature_status":"partially-resolved","n":"1","parents":[],"plain":"In thin layered oxide films, electric dipoles can curl into vortices and skyrmions (stable swirling patterns) a few dozen atoms wide. Why they are stable, and how much field, energy and time it takes to write or erase a single one, is open.","posed_since":"2016","precise":"In $(\\mathrm{PbTiO3})_{n}/(\\mathrm{SrTiO3})_{n}$ superlattices with $n \\sim 10\\ \\text{to}\\ 16$, polar vortex arrays (Yadav et al., Nature 2016) and room-temperature polar skyrmions (Das et al., Nature 2019) form from competition of elastic, electrostatic and gradient energies. Determine the phase diagram in $(n,\\ \\mathrm{strain},\\ T,\\ E)$, the energy barrier protecting an isolated skyrmion, and the threshold field, energy and time for deterministic creation and erasure of a single topologically characterized skyrmion. An answer is computed phase boundaries and barriers confirmed by single-texture switching experiments.","problem_ref":null,"references":"","settled_by":"Repeatable creation and erasure of a single polar skyrmion by a scanning-probe field pulse with measured threshold, compared with a first-principles-based barrier calculation.","status_note":"Local field switching of skyrmion-like polar nanodomains was reported in 2022 (Han et al., Nature); the barrier of an isolated skyrmion and its switching energy and time had not been determined as of 2025.","title":"Stability and deterministic switching of polar vortices and skyrmions","topic_ref":"39675ee993fdae1601831aaa7eb336e8100565a08d8679ad19287c2eb2abba01"},"attested":{"attestation":{"batch":null,"client_id":null,"id_token_sha256":null,"kind":"platform"},"record_hash":"b5cad0e160386797c80413cb75d5c191dd33d4eb616d3f66cc164ca382614b53","schema":"pubphys.attested/1"},"envelope":{"attested_hash":"d3bec5fa70cdad073f54987bf46d8d24f2782c0f0d8cae2e088d2004bdff9ce6","platform_signature":{"key_id":"c6afc19b31429869751f06879c75cd64ea92654423d15b44be775bf1310a60da","sig":"CJO9l9xWIe9LhrW3G9ccDlo0QU4vrwNd6fVczzOHPyZzBXFIgBZTdvuwCCQhzuW_-a-mA0AsEm_iH6RKKrpHCg"},"schema":"pubphys.envelope/1"},"record_hash":"b5cad0e160386797c80413cb75d5c191dd33d4eb616d3f66cc164ca382614b53","leaf_index":982}