When subjected to the interfacially induced Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya
interaction, the ground state in thin ferromagnetic films with high
perpendicular anisotropy is cycloidal. The period of this cycloidal state
depends on the strength of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. In this work,
we have studied the effect of confinement on the magnetic ground state and
excited states, and we determined the phase diagram of thin strips and thin
square platelets by means of micromagnetic calculations. We show that multiple
cycloidal states with different periods can be stable in laterally confined
films, where the period of the cycloids does not depend solely on the
Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction strength but also on the dimensions of the
film. The more complex states comprising skyrmions are also found to be stable,
though with higher energy.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure
