skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Bloch Chirality Induced by an Interlayer Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction in Ferromagnetic Multilayers

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters

Chiral spin textures stabilized by the interfacial Dzyaloshinkii-Moriya interaction, such as skyrmions and homochiral domain walls, have been shown to exhibit qualities that make them attractive for their incorporation in a variety of spintronic devices. However, for thicker multilayer films, mixed textures occur in which an achiral Bloch component coexists with a chiral Néel component of the domain wall to reduce the demagnetization field at the film surface. We show that an interlayer Dzyaloshinkii-Moriya interaction can break the degeneracy between Bloch chiralities. We further find large population asymmetries and chiral branching in the Bloch component of the domain walls in well-ordered Co/Pd multilayers. This asymmetry is a result of the combined effect of the demagnetization field and an interlayer Dzyaloshinkii-Moriya interaction, and is strongly related to film thickness and structural ordering. This work paves the way toward the utilization of this effect toward controlling Bloch chirality in magnetic multilayers.

Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Research Council of Science & Technology (NST); National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0012704; AC02-98CH10886; CAP-16-01-KIST; 2019M3F3A1A02071509; 2020R1C1C1012664
OSTI ID:
1737423
Report Number(s):
BNL-220710-2020-JAAM; TRN: US2205310
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Vol. 125, Issue 22; ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (32)

Quantitative Fresnel Lorentz microscopy and the transport of intensity equation journal March 2006
Relaxation of Labyrinth Domain Structure of Ferromagnetic Thin Film under Field Cycles journal October 2001
Current-driven dynamics and inhibition of the skyrmion Hall effect of ferrimagnetic skyrmions in GdFeCo films journal March 2018
Long-range chiral exchange interaction in synthetic antiferromagnets journal June 2019
Interlayer Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interactions journal June 2019
Spin-orbit-torque-induced skyrmion dynamics for different types of spin-orbit coupling journal June 2018
Transmission electron microscopy study of Co/Pd and Co/Au multilayers journal May 1993
Room-temperature chiral magnetic skyrmions in ultrathin magnetic nanostructures journal January 2016
Asymmetric skyrmion Hall effect in systems with a hybrid Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction journal June 2018
Skyrmion Lattice in a Chiral Magnet journal February 2009
Observation and analysis of magnetic domain wall oscillations in Ga:YIG films journal July 1975
Chiral ferromagnetism beyond Lifshitz invariants journal April 2020
Aggregation and collapse dynamics of skyrmions in a non-equilibrium state journal May 2018
Domain wall theory and exchange stiffness in Co/Pd multilayers journal May 1996
Magnetostatic twists in room-temperature skyrmions explored by nitrogen-vacancy center spin texture reconstruction journal July 2018
Film thickness dependence of magneto‐optical and magnetic properties in Co/Pt and Co/Pd multilayers journal May 1990
Study of the branching domain structures in epitaxial films of yttrium iron garnet by end face magnetic force microscopy journal January 2013
Observation of room-temperature magnetic skyrmions and their current-driven dynamics in ultrathin metallic ferromagnets journal February 2016
Chirality in Magnetic Multilayers Probed by the Symmetry and the Amplitude of Dichroism in X-Ray Resonant Magnetic Scattering journal January 2018
Symmetry-breaking interlayer Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interactions in synthetic antiferromagnets journal June 2019
Spin–orbit coupling and semiclassical electron dynamics in noncentrosymmetric metals journal November 2009
Skyrmion Hall effect revealed by direct time-resolved X-ray microscopy journal December 2016
Tunable room-temperature magnetic skyrmions in Ir/Fe/Co/Pt multilayers journal July 2017
Magnetic microscopy and topological stability of homochiral Néel domain walls in a Pt/Co/AlOx trilayer journal December 2015
Observation of stable Néel skyrmions in cobalt/palladium multilayers with Lorentz transmission electron microscopy journal March 2017
Determination of domain wall chirality using in situ Lorentz transmission electron microscopy journal May 2017
Magnetization reversal and magnetic anisotropy in patterned Co/Pd multilayer thin films journal January 2008
Intrinsic asymmetry in chiral domain walls due to the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction journal April 2016
Quantification of Mixed Bloch-Néel Topological Spin Textures Stabilized by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction in Co / Pd Multilayers journal June 2019
Direct observation of the skyrmion Hall effect journal September 2016
Tailoring magnetic energies to form dipole skyrmions and skyrmion lattices journal January 2017
Small-angle electron scattering of magnetic fine structures journal May 2013