Ferroic materials exhibit a broad range of tunable phenomena, including magnetism, multiferroicity, and
superconductivity. Topological solitons in ferroics – such as dislocations, skyrmions, and domain walls – are
particularly intriguing, giving a new dimension to property engineering of functional materials. The solitons
locally lower the symmetry and are highly responsive to external stimuli, enabling unusual physical effects
and dynamic control.
In this talk, I will discuss unique nanoscale effects driven by topological solitons in ferroics with electric and
magnetic long-range order. To illustrate how these solitons govern local material behavior, I will present
two examples: (i) ferroelectric domain walls in ErMnO3 and (ii) helimagnetic edge dislocations in FeGe. To
investigate these solitons, we apply a suite of advanced imaging techniques, including scanning probe
microscopy, electron microscopy and atom probe tomography. Due to their emergent functionalities, the
electric and magnetic solitons hold great promise for future technology, enabling conceptually new
pathways towards atomic-scale nanoelectronics and low-energy information processing.