Disorder-broadened topological Hall phase and anomalous Hall scaling in FeGe

Magnetic skyrmions are topologically protected spin textures whose stability and dynamics are highly sensitive to structural disorder. While defects are predicted to stabilize skyrmions through pinning, experimental studies systematically linking defect density to skyrmion phase boundaries and the underlying electron-scattering mechanisms remain scarce. Understanding these skyrmion–defect interactions is crucial for designing reliable, low-power spintronic devices. Here we systematically tune atomic-scale disorder in epitaxial B20 phase 80 nm using 400 keV Ne⁺ irradiation over fluences from 10¹¹ to 10¹⁴ ions cm⁻² and track the resulting evolution of topological and anomalous Hall responses. Increasing defect density broadens the topological Hall signal from a narrow window near 200 K in pristine films to persist down to 4 K in the most irradiated sample. Concurrently, scaling analysis of the anomalous Hall effect reveals a crossover from intrinsic Berry-curvature–dominated transport to extrinsic skew-scattering behavior with increasing defect density. Further, the skew coefficient increases threefold between the pristine and most irradiated sample. These results establish correlations between defect concentration, skyrmion phase stability, and charge-carrier scattering mechanisms, demonstrating that defect engineering provides a pathway to stabilize skyrmions in chiral magnets for next-generation spintronic architectures.