Discovery and recent progress of magnetic skyrmions

Magnetic skyrmions are topologically protected vortex-like nanometric spin textures that have recently received growingly attention for their potential applications in future high-performance spintronic devices. In this article we discuss the following topics, i.e. (1) Various mechanisms of generating skyrmions in magnetic systems; (2) The observed of the skyrmions; (3) Skyrmions in some typical material environments; (4) Unique topological phenomena-Topological Hall Effect (THE) ; (5) Summary and perspective.