Skyrmions were known in theory for a long time, but only experimentally realized less than ten years ago. I guess you can say they fall within the larger field of spintronics, where people seek to exploit spin-charge coupling.
The most well-known example is of course giant magnetoresistance (GMR), and later tunnel magnetoresistance, which was a key piece of harddrive read head technology development in the late 90s and 2000s.
GMR was discovered in 1988, and received the 2007 Nobel prize in physics, and it was actually miniaturized sufficiently to be used commercially in just 10 years.
The most well-known example is of course giant magnetoresistance (GMR), and later tunnel magnetoresistance, which was a key piece of harddrive read head technology development in the late 90s and 2000s.
GMR was discovered in 1988, and received the 2007 Nobel prize in physics, and it was actually miniaturized sufficiently to be used commercially in just 10 years.