Realization of ordered magnetic skyrmions in thin films at ambient conditions

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.

doi:10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.104406

Title: Realization of ordered magnetic skyrmions in thin films at ambient conditions

Journal Article · 10 October 2019 · Physical Review Materials

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.104406 · OSTI ID:1570914

^[1];

^[1]; Montoya, Sergio A. ^[2]; Borchers, Julie A. ^[3]; Je, Soong-Geun ^[4]; Tang, Nan ^[5]; Im, Mi-Young ^[6];

^[7]; Fullerton, Eric E. ^[8]; Gilbert, Dustin A. ^[9]

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)

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.

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Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 1570914

Journal Information:: Physical Review Materials, Journal Name: Physical Review Materials Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 3; ISSN PRMHAR; ISSN 2475-9953

Publisher:: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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