No Arabic abstract
In a ferromagnetic nanodisk, the magnetization tends to swirl around in the plane of the disk and can point either up or down at the center of this magnetic vortex. This binary state can be useful for information storage. It is demonstrated that a single nanosecond current pulse can switch the core polarity. This method also provides the precise control of the core direction, which constitutes fundamental technology for realizing a vortex core memory.
We report on the switching of the magnetic vortex core in a Pac-man disk using a magnetic field pulse, investigated via micromagnetic simulations. The minimum core switching field is reduced by 72 % compared to that of a circular disk with the same diameter and thickness. However, the core switches irregularly with respect to both the field pulse amplitude and duration. This irregularity is induced by magnetization oscillations which arise due to excitation of the spin waves when the core annihilates. We show that the core switching can be controlled with the assist magnetic field and by changing the waveform.
We report on the switching of a magnetic vortex core in a sub-micron Permalloy disk, induced by a short current pulse applied in the film plane. Micromagnetic simulations including the adiabatic and non-adiabatic spin-torque terms are used to investigate the current-driven magnetization dynamics. We predict that a core reversal can be triggered by current bursts a tenth of a nanosecond long. The vortex core reversal process is found to be the same as when an external field pulse is applied. The control of a vortex cores orientation using current pulses introduces the technologically relevant possibility to address individual nanomagnets within dense arrays.
We investigate the influence of artificial defects (small holes) inserted into magnetic nanodisks on the vortex core dynamics. One and two holes (antidots) are considered. In general, the core falls into the hole but, in particular, we would like to remark an interesting phenomenon not yet observed, which is the vortex core switching induced by the vortex-hole interactions. It occurs for the case with only one hole and for very special conditions involving the hole size and position as well as the disk size. Any small deformation in the disk geometry such as the presence of a second antidot changes completely the vortex dynamics and the vortex core eventually falls into one of the defects. After trapped, the vortex center still oscillates with a very high frequency and small amplitude around the defect center.
A magnetic vortex is a curling magnetic structure realized in a ferromagnetic disk, which is a promising candidate of a memory cell for future nonvolatile data storage devices. Thus, understanding of the stability and dynamical behaviour of the magnetic vortex is a major requirement for developing magnetic data storage technology. Since the experimental proof of the existence of a nanometre-scale core with out-of-plane magnetisation in the magnetic vortex, the dynamics of a vortex has been investigated intensively. However, the way to electrically control the core magnetisation, which is a key for constructing a vortex core memory, has been lacking. Here, we demonstrate the electrical switching of the core magnetisation by utilizing the current-driven resonant dynamics of the vortex; the core switching is triggered by a strong dynamic field which is produced locally by a rotational core motion at a high speed of several hundred m/s. Efficient switching of the vortex core without magnetic field application is achieved thanks to resonance. This opens up the potentiality of a simple magnetic disk as a building block for spintronic devices like a memory cell where the bit data is stored as the direction of the nanometre-scale core magnetisation.
Transfer of angular momentum from a spin-polarized current to a ferromagnet provides an efficient means to control the dynamics of nanomagnets. A peculiar consequence of this spin-torque, the ability to induce persistent oscillations of a nanomagnet by applying a dc current, has previously been reported only for spatially uniform nanomagnets. Here we demonstrate that a quintessentially nonuniform magnetic structure, a magnetic vortex, isolated within a nanoscale spin valve structure, can be excited into persistent microwave-frequency oscillations by a spin-polarized dc current. Comparison to micromagnetic simulations leads to identification of the oscillations with a precession of the vortex core. The oscillations, which can be obtained in essentially zero magnetic field, exhibit linewidths that can be narrower than 300 kHz, making these highly compact spin-torque vortex oscillator devices potential candidates for microwave signal-processing applications, and a powerful new tool for fundamental studies of vortex dynamics in magnetic nanostructures.