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Title: Realization of ground-state artificial skyrmion lattices at room temperature

Abstract

The topological nature of magnetic skyrmions leads to extraordinary properties that provide new insights into fundamental problems of magnetism and exciting potentials for novel magnetic technologies. Prerequisite are systems exhibiting skyrmion lattices at ambient conditions, which have been elusive so far. Here, we demonstrate the realization of artificial Bloch skyrmion lattices over extended areas in their ground state at room temperature by patterning asymmetric magnetic nanodots with controlled circularity on an underlayer with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA). Polarity is controlled by a tailored magnetic field sequence and demonstrated in magnetometry measurements. The vortex structure is imprinted from the dots into the interfacial region of the underlayer via suppression of the PMA by a critical ion-irradiation step. The imprinted skyrmion lattices are identified directly with polarized neutron reflectometry and confirmed by magnetoresistance measurements. Our results demonstrate an exciting platform to explore room-temperature ground-state skyrmion lattices.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [2];  [4];  [5];  [5];  [2];  [6]
  1. Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics; National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States). Center for Neutron Research
  2. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States). Center for Neutron Research
  3. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States). Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology; Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  4. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
  5. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States). Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology
  6. Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
OSTI Identifier:
1252990
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1378586
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-05-CH11231; DMR-1008791; ECCS-1232275; AC02-05CH11231
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Nature Communications
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 6; Journal ID: ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; Applied physics; Magnetic properties and materials; Quantum mechanics

Citation Formats

Gilbert, Dustin A., Maranville, Brian B., Balk, Andrew L., Kirby, Brian J., Fischer, Peter, Pierce, Daniel T., Unguris, John, Borchers, Julie A., and Liu, Kai. Realization of ground-state artificial skyrmion lattices at room temperature. United States: N. p., 2015. Web. doi:10.1038/ncomms9462.
Gilbert, Dustin A., Maranville, Brian B., Balk, Andrew L., Kirby, Brian J., Fischer, Peter, Pierce, Daniel T., Unguris, John, Borchers, Julie A., & Liu, Kai. Realization of ground-state artificial skyrmion lattices at room temperature. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9462
Gilbert, Dustin A., Maranville, Brian B., Balk, Andrew L., Kirby, Brian J., Fischer, Peter, Pierce, Daniel T., Unguris, John, Borchers, Julie A., and Liu, Kai. Thu . "Realization of ground-state artificial skyrmion lattices at room temperature". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9462. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1252990.
@article{osti_1252990,
title = {Realization of ground-state artificial skyrmion lattices at room temperature},
author = {Gilbert, Dustin A. and Maranville, Brian B. and Balk, Andrew L. and Kirby, Brian J. and Fischer, Peter and Pierce, Daniel T. and Unguris, John and Borchers, Julie A. and Liu, Kai},
abstractNote = {The topological nature of magnetic skyrmions leads to extraordinary properties that provide new insights into fundamental problems of magnetism and exciting potentials for novel magnetic technologies. Prerequisite are systems exhibiting skyrmion lattices at ambient conditions, which have been elusive so far. Here, we demonstrate the realization of artificial Bloch skyrmion lattices over extended areas in their ground state at room temperature by patterning asymmetric magnetic nanodots with controlled circularity on an underlayer with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA). Polarity is controlled by a tailored magnetic field sequence and demonstrated in magnetometry measurements. The vortex structure is imprinted from the dots into the interfacial region of the underlayer via suppression of the PMA by a critical ion-irradiation step. The imprinted skyrmion lattices are identified directly with polarized neutron reflectometry and confirmed by magnetoresistance measurements. Our results demonstrate an exciting platform to explore room-temperature ground-state skyrmion lattices.},
doi = {10.1038/ncomms9462},
journal = {Nature Communications},
number = ,
volume = 6,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Oct 08 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Thu Oct 08 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}

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