Abstract

Nitrogen-vacancy magnetic microscopy is employed in the quenching mode as a noninvasive, high-resolution tool to investigate the morphology of isolated skyrmions in ultrathin magnetic films. The skyrmion size and shape are found to be strongly affected by local pinning effects and magnetic field history. Micromagnetic simulations including a static disorder, based on the physical model of grain-to-grain thickness variations, reproduce all experimental observations and reveal the key role of disorder andmagnetic history in the stabilization of skyrmions in ultrathin magnetic films. This work opens the way to an in-depth understanding of skyrmion dynamics in real, disordered media.