Symmetry, Structure, and Dynamics of Monoaxial Chiral Magnets

Nontrivial spin orders with magnetic chirality emerge in a particular class of magnetic materials with structural chirality, which are frequently referred to as chiral magnets. Various interesting physical properties are expected to be induced in chiral magnets through the coupling of chiral magnetic orders with conduction electrons and electromagnetic fields. One promising candidate for achieving these couplings is a chiral spin soliton lattice. Here, we review recent experimental observations mainly carried out on the monoaxial chiral magnetic crystal CrNb3S6 via magnetic imaging using electron, neutron, and X-ray beams and magnetoresistance measurements, together with the strategy for synthesizing chiral magnetic materials and underlying theoretical backgrounds. The chiral soliton lattice appears under a magnetic field perpendicular to the chiral helical axis and is very robust and stable with phase coherence on a macroscopic length scale. The tunable and topological nature of the chiral soliton lattice gives rise to nontrivial physical properties. Indeed, it is demonstrated that the interlayer magnetoresistance scales to the soliton density, which plays an essential role as an order parameter in chiral soliton lattice formation, and becomes quantized with the reduction of the system size. These interesting features arising from macroscopic phase coherence unique to the chiral soliton lattice will lead to the exploration of routes to a new paradigm for applications in spin electronics using spin phase coherence.