This content will become publicly available on October 10, 2020
Realization of ordered magnetic skyrmions in thin films at ambient conditions
Abstract
Magnetic skyrmions have captivated physicists due to their topological nature and novel physical properties. In addition, skyrmions hold significant promise for future information technologies. A key barrier to realizing skyrmion-based devices has been stabilizing these spin structures under ambient conditions. In this paper, we demonstrate that the tunable magnetic properties of amorphous Fe/Gd mulitlayers enable the formation of skyrmion lattices which are stable over a large temperature and magnetic field parameter space, including room temperature and zero magnetic field. These skyrmions, having a hybrid nature displaying both Bloch-type and Néel-type characteristics, are stabilized by dipolar interactions rather than Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, typically considered a requirement for the generation of skyrmions. Small angle neutron scattering (SANS) was used in combination with soft x-ray microscopy to provide a unique, multiscale probe of the local and long-range order of these structures. The hexagonal lattice seen in SANS results from the hybrid skyrmion picture obtained with micromagnetic simulations. Furthermore, these results identify a pathway to engineer controllable skyrmion phases in thin film geometries which are stable at ambient conditions.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[1];
[7];
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, San Diego, CA (United States)
- National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Ulsan National Inst. of Science and Technology, Ulsan (Republic of Korea); DGIST, Daegu (Republic of Korea)
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
- Univ. of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States)
- National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1570914
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Materials
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 3; Journal Issue: 10; Journal ID: ISSN 2475-9953
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
Citation Formats
Desautels, Ryan D., DeBeer-Schmitt, Lisa, Montoya, Sergio A., Borchers, Julie A., Je, Soong-Geun, Tang, Nan, Im, Mi-Young, Fitzsimmons, Michael R., Fullerton, Eric E., and Gilbert, Dustin A. Realization of ordered magnetic skyrmions in thin films at ambient conditions. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.104406.
Desautels, Ryan D., DeBeer-Schmitt, Lisa, Montoya, Sergio A., Borchers, Julie A., Je, Soong-Geun, Tang, Nan, Im, Mi-Young, Fitzsimmons, Michael R., Fullerton, Eric E., & Gilbert, Dustin A. Realization of ordered magnetic skyrmions in thin films at ambient conditions. United States. doi:10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.104406.
Desautels, Ryan D., DeBeer-Schmitt, Lisa, Montoya, Sergio A., Borchers, Julie A., Je, Soong-Geun, Tang, Nan, Im, Mi-Young, Fitzsimmons, Michael R., Fullerton, Eric E., and Gilbert, Dustin A. Thu .
"Realization of ordered magnetic skyrmions in thin films at ambient conditions". United States. doi:10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.104406.
@article{osti_1570914,
title = {Realization of ordered magnetic skyrmions in thin films at ambient conditions},
author = {Desautels, Ryan D. and DeBeer-Schmitt, Lisa and Montoya, Sergio A. and Borchers, Julie A. and Je, Soong-Geun and Tang, Nan and Im, Mi-Young and Fitzsimmons, Michael R. and Fullerton, Eric E. and Gilbert, Dustin A.},
abstractNote = {Magnetic skyrmions have captivated physicists due to their topological nature and novel physical properties. In addition, skyrmions hold significant promise for future information technologies. A key barrier to realizing skyrmion-based devices has been stabilizing these spin structures under ambient conditions. In this paper, we demonstrate that the tunable magnetic properties of amorphous Fe/Gd mulitlayers enable the formation of skyrmion lattices which are stable over a large temperature and magnetic field parameter space, including room temperature and zero magnetic field. These skyrmions, having a hybrid nature displaying both Bloch-type and Néel-type characteristics, are stabilized by dipolar interactions rather than Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, typically considered a requirement for the generation of skyrmions. Small angle neutron scattering (SANS) was used in combination with soft x-ray microscopy to provide a unique, multiscale probe of the local and long-range order of these structures. The hexagonal lattice seen in SANS results from the hybrid skyrmion picture obtained with micromagnetic simulations. Furthermore, these results identify a pathway to engineer controllable skyrmion phases in thin film geometries which are stable at ambient conditions.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.104406},
journal = {Physical Review Materials},
number = 10,
volume = 3,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {10}
}
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