The bulk helimagnet Cu2OSeO3 represents a unique example in the family of B20 cubic helimagnets exhibiting a tilted spiral and skyrmion phase at low temperatures when the magnetic field is applied along the easy (001) crystallographic direction. Here we present a systematic study of the stability and ordering of these low-temperature magnetic states. We focus our attention on the temperature and field dependencies of the tilted spiral state that we observe persisting up to above T=35 K, i.e., up to higher temperatures than reported so far. We discuss these results in the frame of the phenomenological theory introduced by Dzyaloshinskii in an attempt to reach a quantitative description of the experimental findings. We find that the anisotropy constants, which are the drivers behind the observed behavior, exhibit a pronounced temperature dependence. This explains the differences in the behavior observed at high temperatures (above T=18 K), where the cubic anisotropy is weak, and at low temperatures (below T=18 K), where a strong cubic anisotropy induces an abrupt appearance of the tilted spirals out of the conical state and enhances the stability of skyrmions.

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We study the evolution of the low-temperature field-induced magnetic defects observed under an applied magnetic field in a series of frustrated amorphous ferromagnets (Fe_1-xMn_x)₇₅P₁₆B₃Al₃ (“a-Fe_1-xMn_x”). Combining small-angle neutron scattering and Monte Carlo simulations, we show that the morphology of these defects resemble that of quasi-bidimensional spin vortices. They are observed in the so-called “reentrant” spin-glass (RSG) phase, up to the critical concentration x_C≈ 0.36 which separates the RSG and “true” spin glass (SG) within the low temperature part of the magnetic phase diagram of a-Fe_1−xMn_x. These textures systematically decrease in size with increasing magnetic field or decreasing the average exchange interaction, and they finally disappear in the SG sample (x= 0.41), being replaced by field-induced correlations over finite length scales. We argue that the study of these nanoscopic defects could be used to probe the critical line between the RSG and SG phases.

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Magnetic skyrmions are topologically protected nanoscale spin textures with particle-like properties. In bulk cubic helimagnets, they appear under applied magnetic fields and condense spontaneously into a lattice in a narrow region of the phase diagram just below the magnetic ordering temperature, the so-called A-phase. Theory, however, predicts skyrmions to be locally stable in a wide range of magnetic fields and temperatures. Our neutron diffraction measurements reveal the formation of skyrmion states in large areas of the magnetic phase diagram, from the lowest temperatures up to the A-phase. We show that nascent and disappearing spiral states near critical lines catalyze topological charge changing processes, leading to the formation and destruction of skyrmionic states at low temperatures, which are thermodynamically stable or metastable depending on the orientation and strength of the magnetic field. Skyrmions are surprisingly resilient to high magnetic fields: the memory of skyrmion lattice states persists in the field polarized state, even when the skyrmion lattice signal has disappeared. These findings highlight the paramount role of magnetic anisotropies in stabilizing skyrmionic states and open up new routes for manipulating these quasi-particles towards energy-efficient spintronics applications.@en