Magnetic skyrmions are topologically non-trivial nanoscale objects. Their topology, which originates in their chiral domain wall winding, governs their unique response to a motion-inducing force. ...When subjected to an electrical current, the chiral winding of the spin texture leads to a deflection of the skyrmion trajectory, characterised by an angle with respect to the applied force direction. This skyrmion Hall angle is predicted to be skyrmion diameter-dependent. In contrast, our experimental study finds that the skyrmion Hall angle is diameter-independent for skyrmions with diameters ranging from 35 to 825 nm. At an average velocity of 6 ± 1 ms
, the average skyrmion Hall angle was measured to be 9° ± 2°. In fact, the skyrmion dynamics is dominated by the local energy landscape such as materials defects and the local magnetic configuration.
Recent advances in nanotechnology allow model systems to be constructed, in which frustrated interactions can be tuned at will, such as articial spin ice. The symmetry of the square ice lattice leads ...to the emergence of a long-range-ordered ground state from the manifold of frustrated states. However, it is experimentally very difcult to access using the effective thermodynamics of rotating-eld demagnetization protocols, because the energy barriers to thermal equilibrium are extremely large. Here we study an as-fabricated sample that approaches the ground state very closely. We identify the small localized departures from the ground state as elementary excitations of the system, at frequencies that follow a Boltzmann law. We therefore identify the state we observe as the frozen-in residue of true thermodynamics that occurred during the fabrication of the sample. The relative proportions of different excitations are suggestive of monopole interactions during thermalization.
Magnetic skyrmions are topological solitons promising for applications as encoders for digital information. A number of different skyrmion-based memory devices have been recently proposed. In order ...to demonstrate a viable skyrmion-based memory device, it is necessary to reliably and reproducibly nucleate, displace, detect, and delete the magnetic skyrmions, possibly in the absence of external applied magnetic fields, which would needlessly complicate the device design. While the skyrmion displacement and detection have both been thoroughly investigated, much less attention has been dedicated to the study of the skyrmion nucleation process and its sub-nanosecond dynamics. In this study, we investigate the nucleation of magnetic skyrmions from a dedicated nanoengineered injector, demonstrating the reliable magnetic skyrmion nucleation at the remnant state. The sub-nanosecond dynamics of the skyrmion nucleation process were also investigated, allowing us to shine light on the physical processes driving the nucleation.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
Magnetic skyrmions are particle‐like deformations in a magnetic texture. They have great potential as information carriers in spintronic devices because of their interesting topological properties ...and favorable motion under spin currents. A new method of nucleating skyrmions at nanoscale defect sites, created in a controlled manner with focused ion beam irradiation, in polycrystalline magnetic multilayer samples with an interfacial Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction, is reported. This new method has three notable advantages: 1) localization of nucleation; 2) stability over a larger range of external field strengths, including stability at zero field; and 3) existence of skyrmions in material systems where, prior to defect fabrication, skyrmions were not previously obtained by field cycling. Additionally, it is observed that the size of defect nucleated skyrmions is uninfluenced by the defect itself—provided that the artificial defects are controlled to be smaller than the inherent skyrmion size. All of these characteristics are expected to be useful toward the goal of realizing a skyrmion‐based spintronic device. This phenomenon is studied with a range of transmission electron microscopy techniques to probe quantitatively the magnetic behavior at the defects with applied field and correlate this with the structural impact of the defects.
Nanoscale artificial defects in magnetic multilayer films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) and Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI), made in a controllable manner using a focused ion beam (FIB), offer deterministic skyrmion nucleation. The nucleated skyrmions are stable over a wider (and lower) range of external field values and the nucleation field is tunable with the type of defect fabricated.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Artificial frustrated systems offer a playground to study the emergent properties of interacting systems. Most work to date has been on spatially periodic systems, known as artificial spin ices when ...the interacting elements are magnetic. Here we have studied artificial magnetic quasicrystals based on quasiperiodic Penrose tiling patterns of interacting nanomagnets. We construct a low-energy configuration from a step-by-step approach that we propose as a ground state. Topologically induced emergent frustration means that this configuration cannot be constructed from vertices in their ground states. It has two parts, a quasi-one-dimensional ‘skeleton’ that spans the entire pattern and is capable of long-range order, surrounding ‘flippable’ clusters of macrospins that lead to macroscopic degeneracy. Magnetic force microscopy imaging of Penrose tiling arrays revealed superdomains that are larger for more strongly coupled arrays, especially after annealing the array above its blocking temperature.
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For over ten years, arrays of interacting single-domain nanomagnets, referred to as artificial spin ices, have been engineered with the aim to study frustration in model spin systems. Here, we use ...Fresnel imaging to study the reversal process in “pinwheel” artificial spin ice, a modified square ASI structure obtained by rotating each island by some angle about its midpoint. Our results demonstrate that a simple 45° rotation changes the magnetic ordering from antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic, creating a superferromagnet which exhibits mesoscopic domain growth mediated by domain wall nucleation and coherent domain propagation. We observe several domain-wall configurations, most of which are direct analogues to those seen in continuous ferromagnetic films. However, charged walls also appear due to the geometric constraints of the system. Changing the orientation of the external magnetic field allows control of the nature of the spin reversal with the emergence of either one- or two-dimensional avalanches. This property of pinwheel ASI could be employed to tune devices based on magnetotransport phenomena such as Hall circuits.
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Magnetic skyrmions are knot-like quasiparticles. They are candidates for non-volatile data storage in which information is moved between fixed read and write terminals. The read-out operation of ...skyrmion-based spintronic devices will rely on the electrical detection of a single magnetic skyrmion within a nanostructure. Here we present Pt/Co/Ir nanodiscs that support skyrmions at room temperature. We measured the Hall resistivity and simultaneously imaged the spin texture using magnetic scanning transmission X-ray microscopy. The Hall resistivity is correlated to both the presence and size of the skyrmion. The size-dependent part matches the expected anomalous Hall signal when averaging the magnetization over the entire disc. We observed a resistivity contribution that only depends on the number and sign of skyrmion-like objects present in the disc. Each skyrmion gives rise to 22 ± 2 nΩ cm irrespective of its size. This contribution needs to be considered in all-electrical detection schemes applied to skyrmion-based devices. Not only the area of Néel skyrmions but also their number and sign contribute to their Hall resistivity.
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IJS, NUK, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Designing and constructing model systems that embody the statistical mechanics of frustration is now possible using nanotechnology. We have arranged nanomagnets on a two-dimensional square lattice to ...form an artificial spin ice, and studied its fractional excitations, emergent magnetic monopoles, and how they respond to a driving field using X-ray magnetic microscopy. We observe a regime in which the monopole drift velocity is linear in field above a critical field for the onset of motion. The temperature dependence of the critical field can be described by introducing an interaction term into the Bean-Livingston model of field-assisted barrier hopping. By analogy with electrical charge drift motion, we define and measure a monopole mobility that is larger both for higher temperatures and stronger interactions between nanomagnets. The mobility in this linear regime is described by a creep model of zero-dimensional charges moving within a network of quasi-one-dimensional objects.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
The current-driven motion of magnetic domain walls (DWs) is the working principle of magnetic racetrack memories. In this type of spintronic technology, high current densities are used to ...propel DW motion in magnetic nanowires, causing significant wire heating that corresponds to wasted energy. Synthetic antiferromagnets are known to show very fast DW motion at high current densities, but lower current densities around onset of motion have received less attention. Here we use scanning transmission x-ray microscopy to study the response of DWs in a SAF multilayer to short current pulses. We observe that the DWs depin at
(
3.5
±
0.4
)
×
10
11
A m
−2
and move more quickly in response to 5 ns duration current pulses than in comparable multilayers that lack antiferromagnetic coupling. The results suggest that DWs in SAF structures are superior to conventional Néel DWs for low energy consumption racetrack technologies.
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