Magnetic skyrmions are topologically stable, vortex-like objects surrounded by chiral boundaries that separate a region of reversed magnetization from the surrounding magnetized material. They are closely related to nanoscopic chiral magnetic domain walls, which could be used as memory and logic elements for conventional and neuromorphic computing applications that go beyond Moore’s law.

Fractionalized excitations that emerge from a many-body system have revealed rich physics and concepts, from composite fermions in two-dimensional electron systems, revealed through the fractional quantum Hall effect, to spinons in antiferromagnetic chains and, more recently, fractionalization of Dirac electrons in graphene and magnetic monopoles in spin ice.