  Defects, i.e. inhomogeneities of the underlying lattice, are ubiquitous in
magnetic materials and can have a crucial impact on their applicability in
spintronic devices. For magnetic skyrmions, localized and topologically
non-trivial spin textures, they give rise to a spatially inhomogeneous energy
landscape and can lead to pinning, resulting in an exponentially increased
dwell time at certain positions and typically a strongly reduced mobility.
Using atomistic spin dynamics simulations, we reveal that under certain
conditions defects can instead enhance thermal diffusion of ferromagnetic
skyrmions. By comparing with results for the diffusion of antiferromagnetic
skyrmions and using a quasi-particle description based on the Thiele equation,
we demonstrate that this surprising finding can be traced back to the partial
lifting of the impact of the topologigal gyrocoupling, which governs the
dynamics of ferromagnetic skyrmions in the absence of defects.
