Current-Induced Skyrmion Generation through Morphological Thermal Transitions in Chiral Ferromagnetic Heterostructures

Lemesh, Ivan; Litzius, Kai; Böttcher, Marie; Bassirian, Pedram; Kerber, Nico; Heinze, Daniel; Zázvorka, Jakub; Büttner, Felix; Caretta, Lucas; Mann, Maxwell; Weigand, Markus; Finizio, Simone; Raabe, Jörg; Im, Mi-Young; Stoll, Hermann; Schütz, Gisela; Dupé, Bertrand; Kläui, Mathias; Beach, Geoffrey S.  D.

doi:10.1002/adma.201805461

Title: Current-Induced Skyrmion Generation through Morphological Thermal Transitions in Chiral Ferromagnetic Heterostructures

Journal Article · Thu Oct 04 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Advanced Materials

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201805461· OSTI ID:1530325

^[1]; Litzius, Kai ^[2]; Böttcher, Marie ^[3]; Bassirian, Pedram ^[3]; Kerber, Nico ^[3]; Heinze, Daniel ^[3]; Zázvorka, Jakub ^[3]; Büttner, Felix ^[1]; Caretta, Lucas ^[1]; Mann, Maxwell ^[1]; Weigand, Markus ^[4]; Finizio, Simone ^[5]; Raabe, Jörg ^[5]; Im, Mi-Young ^[6]; Stoll, Hermann ^[4]; Schütz, Gisela ^[4]; Dupé, Bertrand ^[3]; Kläui, Mathias ^[7]; Beach, Geoffrey S. D. ^[1]

Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Johannes Gutenberg Univ., Mainz (Germany); Graduate School of Excellence Materials Science in Mainz (Germany); Max Planck Inst. for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart (Germany)
Johannes Gutenberg Univ., Mainz (Germany)
Max Planck Inst. for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart (Germany)
Paul Scherrer Inst. (PSI), Villigen (Switzerland). Swiss Light Source
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Department of Emerging Materials Science, Daegu (Korea, Republic of); Ulsan National Inst. of Science and Technology (Korea, Republic of)
Johannes Gutenberg Univ., Mainz (Germany); Graduate School of Excellence Materials Science in Mainz (Germany)

Abstract Magnetic skyrmions promise breakthroughs in future memory and computing devices due to their inherent stability and small size. Their creation and current driven motion have been recently observed at room temperature, but the key mechanisms of their formation are not yet well‐understood. Here it is shown that in heavy metal/ferromagnet heterostructures, pulsed currents can drive morphological transitions between labyrinth‐like, stripe‐like, and skyrmionic states. Using high‐resolution X‐ray microscopy, the spin texture evolution with temperature and magnetic field is imaged and it is demonstrated that with transient Joule heating, topological charges can be injected into the system, driving it across the stripe‐skyrmion boundary. The observations are explained through atomistic spin dynamic and micromagnetic simulations that reveal a crossover to a global skyrmionic ground state above a threshold magnetic field, which is found to decrease with increasing temperature. It is demonstrated how by tuning the phase stability, one can reliably generate skyrmions by short current pulses and stabilize them at zero field, providing new means to create and manipulate spin textures in engineered chiral ferromagnets.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

View Accepted Manuscript (Publisher)

Cite

Export

Save

Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231; DE‐SC0012371; DE‐AC02‐05CH11231

OSTI ID:: 1530325

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1479574

Journal Information:: Advanced Materials, Vol. 30, Issue 49; ISSN 0935-9648

Publisher:: WileyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 72 works

Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (55)

Current-driven periodic domain wall creation in ferromagnetic nanowires Sitte, Matthias; Everschor-Sitte, Karin; Valet, Thierry Physical Review B, Vol. 94, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.94.064422	journal	August 2016
Skyrmion lattice phase in three-dimensional chiral magnets from Monte Carlo simulations Buhrandt, Stefan; Fritz, Lars Physical Review B, Vol. 88, Issue 19 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.88.195137	journal	November 2013
Implications of the B20 crystal structure for the magnetoelectronic structure of $MnSi$ Jeong, T.; Pickett, W. E. Physical Review B, Vol. 70, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.70.075114	journal	August 2004
A thermodynamic theory of “weak” ferromagnetism of antiferromagnetics Dzyaloshinsky, I. Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids, Vol. 4, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-3697(58)90076-3	journal	January 1958
Current-driven dynamics of chiral ferromagnetic domain walls Emori, Satoru; Bauer, Uwe; Ahn, Sung-Min Nature Materials, Vol. 12, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3675	journal	June 2013
Room-temperature chiral magnetic skyrmions in ultrathin magnetic nanostructures Boulle, Olivier; Vogel, Jan; Yang, Hongxin Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 11, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.315	journal	January 2016
Path to collapse for an isolated Néel skyrmion Rohart, S.; Miltat, J.; Thiaville, A. Physical Review B, Vol. 93, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.93.214412	journal	June 2016
Field-Dependent Size and Shape of Single Magnetic Skyrmions Romming, Niklas; Kubetzka, André; Hanneken, Christian Physical Review Letters, Vol. 114, Issue 17 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.177203	journal	May 2015
Skyrmions on the track Fert, Albert; Cros, Vincent; Sampaio, João Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 8, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2013.29	journal	March 2013
Magnetic Domain Structures in Thin Uniaxial Plates with Perpendicular Easy Axis Cape, J. A.; Lehman, G. W. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 42, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1660007	journal	December 1971
Skyrmion Lattice in a Chiral Magnet Muhlbauer, S.; Binz, B.; Jonietz, F. Science, Vol. 323, Issue 5916 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1166767	journal	February 2009
Nucleation, stability and current-induced motion of isolated magnetic skyrmions in nanostructures Sampaio, J.; Cros, V.; Rohart, S. Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 8, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2013.210	journal	October 2013
A strategy for the design of skyrmion racetrack memories Tomasello, R.; Martinez, E.; Zivieri, R. Scientific Reports, Vol. 4, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep06784	journal	October 2014
Capturing of a magnetic skyrmion with a hole Müller, Jan; Rosch, Achim Physical Review B, Vol. 91, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.91.054410	journal	February 2015
Trochoidal motion and pair generation in skyrmion and antiskyrmion dynamics under spin–orbit torques Ritzmann, Ulrike; von Malottki, Stephan; Kim, Joo-Von Nature Electronics, Vol. 1, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-018-0114-0	journal	August 2018
Joule heating in nanowires Fangohr, Hans; Chernyshenko, Dmitri S.; Franchin, Matteo Physical Review B, Vol. 84, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.84.054437	journal	August 2011
Observation of room-temperature magnetic skyrmions and their current-driven dynamics in ultrathin metallic ferromagnets Woo, Seonghoon; Litzius, Kai; Krüger, Benjamin Nature Materials, Vol. 15, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4593	journal	February 2016
Stabilizing spin spirals and isolated skyrmions at low magnetic field exploiting vanishing magnetic anisotropy Hervé, Marie; Dupé, Bertrand; Lopes, Rafael Nature Communications, Vol. 9, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03240-w	journal	March 2018
Phase Transition in Magnetic Bubble Lattices Zavadskii, E. A.; Zablotskii, V. A. Physica Status Solidi (a), Vol. 112, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1002/pssa.2211120116	journal	March 1989
Dynamics and inertia of skyrmionic spin structures Büttner, Felix; Moutafis, C.; Schneider, M. Nature Physics, Vol. 11, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3234	journal	February 2015
Skyrmion Hall effect revealed by direct time-resolved X-ray microscopy Litzius, Kai; Lemesh, Ivan; Krüger, Benjamin Nature Physics, Vol. 13, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys4000	journal	December 2016
Spin Hall effects Sinova, Jairo; Valenzuela, Sergio O.; Wunderlich, J. Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 87, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.87.1213	journal	October 2015
Tailoring magnetic skyrmions in ultra-thin transition metal films Dupé, Bertrand; Hoffmann, Markus; Paillard, Charles Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5030	journal	June 2014
Skyrmion production on demand by homogeneous DC currents Everschor-Sitte, Karin; Sitte, Matthias; Valet, Thierry New Journal of Physics, Vol. 19, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/aa8569	journal	September 2017
Writing and Deleting Single Magnetic Skyrmions Romming, N.; Hanneken, C.; Menzel, M. Science, Vol. 341, Issue 6146 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1240573	journal	August 2013
Potential implementation of reservoir computing models based on magnetic skyrmions Bourianoff, George; Pinna, Daniele; Sitte, Matthias AIP Advances, Vol. 8, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5006918	journal	May 2018
Generation of magnetic skyrmion bubbles by inhomogeneous spin Hall currents Heinonen, Olle; Jiang, Wanjun; Somaily, Hamoud Physical Review B, Vol. 93, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.93.094407	journal	March 2016
Field-free deterministic ultrafast creation of magnetic skyrmions by spin–orbit torques Büttner, Felix; Lemesh, Ivan; Schneider, Michael Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 12, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2017.178	journal	October 2017
Phase transitions with spontaneous modulation-the dipolar Ising ferromagnet Garel, T.; Doniach, S. Physical Review B, Vol. 26, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.26.325	journal	July 1982
Domain Shapes and Patterns: The Phenomenology of Modulated Phases Seul, M.; Andelman, D. Science, Vol. 267, Issue 5197 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.267.5197.476	journal	January 1995
Anisotropic Superexchange Interaction and Weak Ferromagnetism Moriya, Tôru Physical Review, Vol. 120, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.120.91	journal	October 1960
Room-Temperature Current-Induced Generation and Motion of sub-100 nm Skyrmions Legrand, William; Maccariello, Davide; Reyren, Nicolas Nano Letters, Vol. 17, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b00649	journal	March 2017
Magnetic skyrmion logic gates: conversion, duplication and merging of skyrmions Zhang, Xichao; Ezawa, Motohiko; Zhou, Yan Scientific Reports, Vol. 5, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep09400	journal	March 2015
Evolution of disorder in magnetic stripe domains. I. Transverse instabilities and disclination unbinding in lamellar patterns Seul, M.; Wolfe, R. Physical Review A, Vol. 46, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.46.7519	journal	December 1992
Erratum: Additive interfacial chiral interaction in multilayers for stabilization of small individual skyrmions at room temperature Moreau-Luchaire, C.; Moutafis, C.; Reyren, N. Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 11, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2016.107	journal	August 2016
Blowing magnetic skyrmion bubbles Jiang, W.; Upadhyaya, P.; Zhang, W. Science, Vol. 349, Issue 6245 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa1442	journal	June 2015
Theory of antiskyrmions in magnets Koshibae, Wataru; Nagaosa, Naoto Nature Communications, Vol. 7, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10542	journal	January 2016
Real-space observation of a two-dimensional skyrmion crystal Yu, X. Z.; Onose, Y.; Kanazawa, N. Nature, Vol. 465, Issue 7300 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09124	journal	June 2010
Direct observation of the skyrmion Hall effect Jiang, Wanjun; Zhang, Xichao; Yu, Guoqiang Nature Physics, Vol. 13, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3883	journal	September 2016
Accurate model of the stripe domain phase of perpendicularly magnetized multilayers Lemesh, Ivan; Büttner, Felix; Beach, Geoffrey S. D. Physical Review B, Vol. 95, Issue 17 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.95.174423	journal	May 2017
Enhanced skyrmion stability due to exchange frustration von Malottki, S.; Dupé, B.; Bessarab, P. F. Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-12525-x	journal	September 2017
Theory of domain patterns in systems with long-range interactions of Coulomb type Muratov, C. B. Physical Review E, Vol. 66, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.66.066108	journal	December 2002
Tailoring magnetic energies to form dipole skyrmions and skyrmion lattices Montoya, S. A.; Couture, S.; Chess, J. J. Physical Review B, Vol. 95, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.95.024415	journal	January 2017
Stabilizing spin spirals and isolated skyrmions at low magnetic field exploiting vanishing magnetic anisotropy Hervé, Marie; Dupé, Bertrand; Lopes, Rafael Karlsruhe https://doi.org/10.5445/ir/1000081400	text	January 2018
Skyrmion Lattice in a Chiral Magnet Mühlbauer, S.; Binz, B.; Jonietz, F. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.0902.1968	text	January 2009
Joule heating in nanowires Fangohr, Hans; Chernyshenko, Dmitri S.; Franchin, Matteo arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1012.4304	text	January 2010
Current-driven dynamics of chiral ferromagnetic domain walls Emori, Satoru; Bauer, Uwe; Ahn, Sung-Min arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1302.2257	text	January 2013
Field-Dependent Size and Shape of Single Magnetic Skyrmions Romming, Niklas; Kubetzka, André; Hanneken, Christian arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1504.01573	text	January 2015
Generation of magnetic skyrmion bubbles by inhomogeneous spin Hall currents Heinonen, Olle; Jiang, Wanjun; Somaily, Hamoud arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1511.04630	text	January 2015
Current-driven periodic domain wall creation in ferromagnetic nano-wires Sitte, Matthias; Everschor-Sitte, Karin; Valet, Thierry arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1607.03336	text	January 2016
Room-temperature current-induced generation and motion of sub-100nm skyrmions Legrand, William; Maccariello, Davide; Reyren, Nicolas arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1702.04616	text	January 2017
Potential implementation of Reservoir Computing models based on magnetic skyrmions Bourianoff, George; Pinna, Daniele; Sitte, Matthias arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1709.08911	text	January 2017
Trochoidal motion and pair generation in skyrmion and antiskyrmion dynamics under spin-orbit torques Ritzmann, Ulrike; von Malottki, Stephan; Kim, Joo-Von arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1803.00534	preprint	January 2018
Theory of domain patterns in systems with long-range interactions of Coulomb type Muratov, C. B. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0209570	text	January 2002
Implications of the B20 Crystal Structure for the Magneto-electronic Structure of MnSi Jeong, T.; Pickett, W. E. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0403442	text	January 2004

Cited By (7)

Individual skyrmion manipulation by local magnetic field gradients Casiraghi, Arianna; Corte-León, Héctor; Vafaee, Mehran Communications Physics, Vol. 2, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-019-0242-5	journal	November 2019
Perspective: Magnetic skyrmions—Overview of recent progress in an active research field Everschor-Sitte, K.; Masell, J.; Reeve, R. M. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 124, Issue 24 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5048972	journal	December 2018
Walker Breakdown with a Twist: Dynamics of Multilayer Domain Walls and Skyrmions Driven by Spin-Orbit Torque Lemesh, Ivan; Beach, Geoffrey S. D. Physical Review Applied, Vol. 12, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevapplied.12.044031	journal	October 2019
Individual skyrmion manipulation by local magnetic field gradients Casiraghi, Arianna; Corte-León, Héctor; Vafaee, Mehran Springer Nature https://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-248	text	January 2019
Individual skyrmion manipulation by local magnetic field gradients Casiraghi, Arianna; Corte-León, Héctor; Vafaee, Mehran arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1903.00367	text	January 2019
Walker breakdown with a twist: Dynamics of multilayer domain walls and skyrmions driven by spin-orbit torque Lemesh, Ivan; Beach, Geoffrey S. D. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1910.07168	text	January 2019
Computing and Memory Technologies based on Magnetic Skyrmions Vakili, Hamed; Zhou, Wei; Ma, Chung T. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2101.09947	text	January 2021

Similar Records

Topological Spin Textures in an Insulating van der Waals Ferromagnet

Journal Article · Mon Mar 04 00:00:00 EST 2024 · Advanced Materials · OSTI ID:1530325

Grebenchuk, Sergey; McKeever, Conor; Grzeszczyk, Magdalena; +11 more

Interface-Driven Chiral Magnetism in Ultrathin Metallic Ferromagnets: Towards Skyrmion Spintronics

Technical Report · Mon Feb 15 00:00:00 EST 2021 · OSTI ID:1530325

Beach, Geoffrey

Investigation of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and room temperature skyrmions in W/CoFeB/MgO thin films and microwires

Journal Article · Thu Jul 13 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Applied Physics Letters · OSTI ID:1530325

Jaiswal, S.; Litzius, K.; Lemesh, I.; +10 more

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE

Title: Current-Induced Skyrmion Generation through Morphological Thermal Transitions in Chiral Ferromagnetic Heterostructures

Citation Formats

References (55)

Cited By (7)

Similar Records

Related Subjects